Babbel.com officials say they have integrated a speech recognition tool into its language learning system.

The feature "encourages practice and gives the opportunity to fine-tune pronunciation skills," they say, adding that the browser-based speech analysis "gives learners an instant evaluation, letting them know how close their pronunciation is to that of a native speaker."

The new feature is included in all Babbel courses, and will take effect automatically, company officials say. No installation is necessary beyond the latest Flash Player.

Many students of foreign languages can learn to read and write the language, but frequently can't do as much as order a bowl of soup in a restaurant should they find themselves actually in a country speaking the language. No, we're not speaking from experience here, we've just… heard of this happening. To somebody else.

So the speech recognition feature "is to give them the confidence to open their mouths. We're encouraging learners to speak and improve their pronunciation with a technical tool before they have to face real-life situations,' says Markus Witte, Managing Director of Babbel.

Real-life situations, such as talking to a computer. Hey don't laugh, today that might very well be the actual "real-life" situation.

Learners hear a word or phrase and are prompted to repeat it back. The quality of the pronunciation is then rated on a scale of 0-100. A result of 50 or higher means that the utterance is generally understandable. Beyond that point, the user can continue to polish their pronunciation to desired perfection.

Another implementation of speech recognition technology is planned for the recently released Babbel iPhone (News - Alert) apps, company officials say.

"Babbel.com is a multimedia site that can be accessed from any computer with Internet," company officials say: "Then with Babbel Mobile, you can learn anywhere on your iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad."

Of course you wouldn't just hold the iPhone display up to the native speaker to… nah.