For practice
Fly through corridors with your voice
Fly through gates shaped like tone contours. Ace the pitch, clear the gate. This builds muscle memory without you even thinking about it.
A tone-training game, not a fluency app
A visual way to train your Mandarin tones
Tones are the hardest thing to get a feel for from a textbook. FlappyTone turns them into something you see and fly through, so you build muscle memory without it feeling like studying.
Flappytone in action.
For understanding
Visualiser: understand how to use your voice
No gates, no score. Watch your voice trace the tone shape in real time against a native speaker's. Wait for the "aha!" moment and then go try out the game!
Needs a microphone and a quiet room. Your voice is processed on your device, never uploaded or stored. No AI, just maths.
How this works
Imagine seeing your pitch as you speak it.
mā, má, mǎ, mà trace four different pitch shapes every time a native speaker says them, that's literally what the tone marks are. Once you make that audio-to-visual connection, tones get a lot more approachable. Watching the shape as you speak trains your voice to actually produce the right pitch changes, and it doesn't take long before you start recognizing tones by ear too, without even trying. This runs on nothing but pitch-detection math in your browser. No model, no upload, no AI.
mǎ, average pronunciation of a native Taiwanese speaker
Not another textbook drill
You don't study tones. You feel them.
Most tone practice is a chart and a list of rules: memorize the shape, repeat the syllable, move on. It doesn't stick. Seeing the tone as you speak it, and watching your own voice trace the shape in real time, builds a mental image most people never get from a textbook. It doesn't really feel like practicing, but you're building muscle memory the whole time.
“Really cool. I have been here for three years and my tones are shit! This is really great.”— r/taiwan
The other half of the app
Understand how to use your voice
Say mǎ ten times in a row and watch every attempt stack on the target shape. No score, no pressure, no gate to clear. Helps you understand how to voice each tone properly.
Based on real speech, not the textbook
Trained on the voice of a native Mandarin speaker from Taiwan
Every corridor is measured from Jane, a native Taiwanese speaker, across 450+ recorded words. Traditional characters, Taiwan pronunciation. The word list follows TOCFL order, so these are words that are actually worth learning first as a beginner, not random vocab. And if a shape doesn't match a textbook you've used, that's not a bug, it's a real accent. More accents, and eventually other tonal languages, are on the roadmap.
Jane is also the founder of Jane's Mandarin, where she helps heritage learners reconnect with their roots through Taiwanese Mandarin.
Every clip in the inventory, resampled and averaged: the bold line is the mean, the faint lines behind it are what she actually said.
- Not pronunciation scoring
- Not a fluency app
- Real speech, not flashcards
- No AI, just maths
Now live
Real two-syllable words, not just single tones
Most tone trainers stop at one syllable. FlappyTone doesn't. Tone Pairs mode flies real two-syllable words, 好玩, 以前, and 240+ more, with a corridor shaped from the exact recording, sandhi and all. Shuffle across every combo, or drill the one that keeps beating you.
“Tone pairs are what I need most, 3-3 still gets me.”— an early tester
Your game, your way
Pick how you practise
Same voice-controlled bird, shaped around where you are with the tones.
Compete
A real leaderboard, week, month, or all-time
Sign up free and every run counts toward your rank. See where you stand this week, this month, or against everyone who's ever played, and come back to defend your spot.
Coming next
More voices and more words, always shipping
It's 450+ words across TOCFL 1-3 and two-syllable tone pairs today. Next up: more accents, deeper tone-pair drills, and whatever gets asked for most. Get notified when new words ship.
One list. Only for FlappyTone updates, no spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Next
More tone-pair drills
Then
A second voice
Later
More accents & languages
Free to play
Free to start, one-time to go further
“I can not continue studying Chinese without this app. I depend on it so much.”— EarlyBird player, over email
Free
- 10 runs a day
- Progress saved and synced to your account
- A real leaderboard entry, under a generated name
- 5 words per tone in the visualiser
- Limited tone pair practice
Pro — $19 one-time
- Unlimited runs
- Every word, every tone, every TOCFL level
- Full tone pairs access
- Leaderboard entry under a name you choose
- Offline play (coming soon)
FAQ
Questions
Does this teach me to speak naturally?
No. It's built for muscle memory on the four tones, not fluency. Words are pronounced clearly and a bit exaggerated on purpose, that's what makes the shape learnable.
Is this AI?
No generative AI anywhere. Your voice never leaves your device, it's just pitch-detection math running in the browser.
Is this exam prep for TOCFL or HSK?
No. Words are picked using the TOCFL beginner lists because they're a good, real answer to what to learn first, not because this trains you for a test. This is about pronunciation, not certification.
Why Taiwan pronunciation and not Beijing?
That's the only accent recorded so far. Regional variation in tone contours is real, more accents are on the roadmap.
What are tone pairs?
Real two-syllable words, not single syllables drilled in isolation. The corridor shape comes straight from the recording, sandhi included.
Do I need an account?
No, you can play as a guest. An account saves your progress across devices and gets you on the leaderboard.
On mobile
Mobile app
iOS and Android apps aren't out yet. A native app would add offline play, practice reminders and a streak you can keep, sign up below to get notified when it's out!
Only for FlappyTone updates. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
In the meantime, add it to your home screen
iPhone / iPad (Safari or Chrome)
- Open this page, then tap Share
- Tap Add to Home Screen
Android
- Open this page in Chrome, then tap ⋮
- Tap Install app
Same effect as an app icon: full screen, no URL bar eating a fifth of the display.