Speak
Real-time pitch scoring
Say a syllable and watch your voice trace land against the target contour. Yingo scores the shape, not someone else’s absolute pitch.
Mandarin tone trainer
Master Mandarin tones.
Tones are the hardest part of Mandarin because they are invisible. Yingo makes them visible: target contours, your live pitch trace, and one precise next attempt.
App Store — coming soon
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Yingo
Live contour
Say má; watch it rise.
Tone 1
Tone 2
Tone 3
Tone 4
4
tone shapes
mā · má · mǎ · mà
27
lessons
across 6 course tracks
349
practice cards
teach → drill → review
0
recordings uploaded
scoring runs on-device
Why it works
A feedback loop for a motor skill.
See
Tone contours on a staff
Tones are tiny melodies. Yingo draws mā, má, mǎ, and mà on five familiar lines so your eye can help your ear catch up.
Hear
Minimal-pair drills
Train contrasts that matter in real speech: má vs mǎ, shuǐjiǎo 水饺 vs shuìjiào 睡觉, and the tone pairs that trip learners up.
Return
Daily SRS review
Practice results feed a spaced-repetition deck, so weak tones come back before they disappear from memory.
Coach
Māo-Māo keeps it light
Your cat coach celebrates clean contours, encourages misses, and listens closely during recording cards.
Offline
Practice on the subway
Lessons cache locally and review events queue safely until the network returns. The voice engine runs on-device.
The curriculum
Four tracks, in the order your brain needs them.
Plus two scenario courses — ordering food and greetings — where the tones earn their keep.
C1
Hear the tones
Perception first: minimal-pair identification with instant feedback, across the contrasts learners actually confuse.
C2
Say the tones
Production with the live contour. One syllable, one trace, one concrete correction — calibrated to your own voice range.
C3
Two-syllable words
Tones live in pairs in real speech. Drill every pattern from 1+1 to 4+4 in words you’ll actually use.
C4
Sandhi & the 3+3 rule
Why 你好 is really ní hǎo, what 不 and 一 do to the tones after them, and the half-third nobody warns you about.
How it works
Hear → Say → Own
Yingo starts where learners actually struggle: not vocabulary volume, but hearing and producing the pitch shapes that change meaning.
01
Hear the contrast
Start with fast, focused perception drills. You cannot reliably say a tone difference you cannot hear yet.
02
Draw it with your voice
Record once, compare your F0 contour to the target, and adjust the next attempt with concrete visual feedback.
03
Own it in words
Move from single syllables to tone pairs, sandhi, and daily review until the shape becomes automatic.
Fresh from the blog
All posts →June 10, 2026
Introducing Yingo: see your tones, fix your tones
Yingo v0.1 is here — Mandarin tone contours drawn on a musical staff, real-time on-device pitch scoring, and Māo-Māo the cat coach. Here's what's inside and what's next.
Read →
June 5, 2026
The 3+3 rule: why nǐ hǎo isn't pronounced the way it's written
Third-tone sandhi explained: why 你好 is really ní hǎo, how 水饺 'dumplings' turns into 睡觉 'sleep' in a learner's mouth, and the half-third tone nobody warns you about.
Read →
June 2, 2026
Why Mandarin tones are the hardest part (and how to actually train them)
Tones aren't decoration — they're the difference between mā 妈 'mother' and mà 骂 'to scold'. Why English-trained ears filter pitch out, and a training method that actually works.
Read →
Build the ear first. Then let your voice follow.
Yingo v0.1 is built around honest feedback: no fake fluency scores, no uploaded voice recordings, no streak theater. Just the contour you aimed for and the contour you actually drew.
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