Editorial Standards
How the blog gets written, dated and fixed, and what to keep in mind when you read a company writing about its own market.
Who publishes this
Everything on this blog is published by Tingyin, the company behind the Tingyin tone trainer. The byline says Tingyin instead of a person's name, because the company stands behind what goes out here, not any one writer.
If that changes and named writers start contributing, you will see their names and backgrounds on the articles they write.
We write about our own market
Tingyin sells a Mandarin listening product. A lot of what you will read here is about the market we compete in: comparisons, lists of alternatives, guides to other apps and courses. That is a conflict of interest, and we would rather say so up front than bury it.
So read these articles the way you would read any company talking about its own category. If a comparison matters for a decision you are making, check the other app's own pages too. Prices, deck sizes and what a course actually covers change without warning, and what you read here was accurate on the review date shown at the top of the article.
What we claim about Mandarin
Articles here describe tones, pinyin and pronunciation. Where a rule has exceptions we say so, instead of teaching the tidy version: third-tone sandhi, the neutral tone, what happens to a tone when a syllable is sung. Where usage is regional we say that too. Pinyin transcribes Standard Mandarin, not every variety a speaker will meet.
Dates and updates
Every article shows when it was first published and, if the two are different, when it was last reviewed. Both dates also go into the page's structured data, so search engines and AI assistants see exactly the same dates you do.
An old publish date is not a problem by itself. It tells you how long a claim has been sitting there, which is worth knowing in a category where apps, prices and course contents get rewritten every few months.
Corrections
Found something wrong? A tone rule stated badly, a feature that no longer exists, a competitor's plan that has been rewritten? Email support@tingyin.app and tell us which article and which claim. We fix the article and update its review date.
Reading further
Support is how to reach a person. Privacy explains what happens to your own data. The blog has everything published so far.