Terms of Service

These terms are the agreement between you and Kevinbyte for the Coachinese mobile app and this website. Installing or using the app means you accept them. If you do not, please do not use the app.

1. Who may use Coachinese

You must be at least 13 years old, and old enough in your country to agree to a contract on your own. If you are using Coachinese on behalf of an organisation, you confirm you are authorised to bind it to these terms.

2. No account, and what that means

Coachinese does not require an account, and your practice data lives on your device rather than on our servers. That is deliberate, and it has a consequence worth stating plainly: we cannot recover your data for you. If you delete the app, reset the device, or lose it, your schedule, takes and saved words go with it. Use your platform’s backup if that matters to you.

3. The free tier and ads

The free tier is supported by advertising. By using it you accept that ads are shown, and that the ad network described in our Privacy Policy receives the data set out there. Ads never appear between releasing the mic and seeing your score. Blocking or interfering with ad delivery while using the free tier is a breach of these terms; if you would rather not see ads, Premium removes them.

4. Premium subscriptions

Premium is sold as an auto-renewing subscription through the Apple App Store and Google Play. Price and billing period are shown in the app before you confirm, and payment is taken by the store, not by us.

• Subscriptions renew automatically at the end of each period unless you cancel at least 24 hours before it ends.
• Cancel through your Apple or Google account settings — we cannot cancel a store subscription for you. Cancelling stops the next renewal; you keep Premium until the current period ends.
• Refunds are handled by the store under its own policy. Where the law gives you a statutory right of withdrawal, that right stands on top of the store’s policy.
• We may change the price, but not during a period you have already paid for, and we will give you notice before a change takes effect so you can cancel.

5. What you may and may not do

We grant you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable licence to use Coachinese on devices you own or control, for your own learning. You may not:

• copy, resell, sublicense or redistribute the app or its content, including the deck material, the finals and grammar reference, and the stroke data;
• reverse engineer, decompile or attempt to extract the software, except to the extent that applicable law expressly permits it;
• reach the Premium speech service by any means other than the app, or automate requests to it;
• upload audio you have no right to submit, or audio of someone who has not agreed to be recorded;
• interfere with the service, probe it for vulnerabilities without our written permission, or use it to break the law.

6. Your recordings

Your recordings are yours. Tone scoring runs on your device and those recordings are not uploaded. One feature uploads audio — the Premium consonant-and-vowel verdict — and for that clip alone you grant us the licence we need to transmit it, have it analysed and return a result, as described in our Privacy Policy. The conversation partner sends text, not audio. We do not use your recordings to train models, and if you have not subscribed nothing you record is uploaded at all.

7. Our content

The app, its interface, the decks and the reference material are owned by Kevinbyte or our licensors and are protected by copyright and other laws. Some parts are third-party open data used under their own licences, credited in the app. Nothing in these terms transfers ownership to you. HSK is a standard published by its own authority; we follow its vocabulary lists but are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or acting for that authority.

8. What Coachinese does not promise

Coachinese is a practice tool. Tone scoring measures the pitch of your voice and compares its shape against the shape the tone should have: it is an estimate, it can be wrong, it can be affected by your microphone, background noise, accent or recording conditions, and a high score is not a certification of fluency. It judges which tone you produced, not how far you moved your pitch, so an under-articulated tone in the right direction still scores well. Your consonants and vowels are described in words and are deliberately not given a number. Handwriting is counted, not graded, and is not an assessment of anything. We do not warrant that the app will be uninterrupted, error-free, or fit for any particular exam. Except where the law does not allow it, the service is provided “as is” and we disclaim implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and non-infringement.

9. Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent the law allows, Kevinbyte is not liable for indirect, incidental, special or consequential losses, or for lost profits, data or goodwill. Our total liability arising from these terms or from your use of Coachinese is limited to the greater of the amount you paid us in the twelve months before the claim, or USD 50. Nothing here limits liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud, or for anything else that cannot lawfully be limited — and if you are a consumer, your mandatory statutory rights are unaffected.

10. Suspension and termination

You can stop using Coachinese at any time by deleting it. We may suspend or terminate access to the Premium services if you materially breach these terms, if we are required to by law, or if continuing would create a security risk — and we will give you notice and a chance to put it right unless doing so is impossible or unsafe. If we discontinue the service, we will give reasonable notice and refund the unused portion of any prepaid period.

11. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms. If a change materially affects your rights, we will notify you in the app at least 14 days before it takes effect. Continuing to use Coachinese after that means you accept the new terms; if you do not, cancel and stop using the app.

12. Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of the jurisdiction in which Kevinbyte is established, without regard to conflict-of-law rules. If you are a consumer, you keep the protection of the mandatory laws of your country of residence and may bring proceedings in its courts.

13. Contact

Questions about these terms: support@coachinese.com.