About Yoruba Tone Trainer

Yoruba Tone Trainer coaches the three Yoruba tones with live pitch feedback: the 3 tones on 15 syllables, then 12 real two-syllable words graded in citation form. Your microphone listens, your pitch line is drawn over the target tone level, and one named hint at a time tells you exactly what to fix.

How it works

• Your browser samples the microphone and measures your pitch with autocorrelation, a standard signal-processing method: it finds how often your voice waveform repeats. No model is downloaded, and no audio is sent anywhere.
• Calibrate first. Yoruba tones are three pitch LEVELS, and a high tone for a low voice can sit below a mid tone for a high voice. Press Set my voice range and slide from your lowest to your highest comfortable note. The app then measures every utterance against your own range: 1.0 means the top of your range, 0.0 the bottom. Recalibrate any time in Settings; your range is stored only on this device.
• For each syllable, the app compares your pitch to the target tone's level: high (mi), mid (re), or low (do). You are judged on level, not on how high or low your voice is in absolute terms.
• Press Check my tone after saying the syllable. If the level matches, you score. If not, you get one named hint, such as: Mid is re, the middle note: yours was too low, near do. Start higher, in the middle, and hold it flat.
• Hear the target plays the target level as a steady tone, placed inside your own calibrated range, so you can hear the level before you say it.
• Tone pairs unlock at 50 points. The app splits your utterance at the gap between syllables and checks each half: the first against the first syllable's tone, the second against the second's. The natural glide at the boundary is not graded, only the steady level of each syllable.
• Pitch tracking approximates tones. Background noise, a quiet voice, a creaky voice, or a cold can confuse it. If a native Yoruba speaker says your tones sound right, trust them over the app.
• Native-speaker review sought: we are seeking review of this app by native Yoruba speakers and Yoruba teachers, in parallel with its release. Review is not a gate: the app is live while review is sought, and corrections will be folded in as they arrive.

The three tones

• High, mi: a steady note near the top of your range. In writing, the acute accent: kó (build).
• Mid, re: a steady note in the middle of your range. In writing, unmarked: ko (sing).
• Low, do: a steady note near the bottom of your range. In writing, the grave accent: kò (reject).

The note names do, re, mi are how Yoruba speakers teach the tones, and they are the honest way to think of them: each tone is one steady musical note. The same syllable with a different tone is a different word. That is why tones matter: say the wrong tone and you may say a different word entirely.

The app teaches Standard Yoruba. Regional dialects differ in how they realise the tones, and other varieties of Yoruba can merge or shift them; a native speaker's ear outranks this app.

At the boundaries

In real speech, when a high and a low tone touch, Yoruba smooths the boundary into a small rise or fall: a high after a low is heard as a rising contour (the second syllable of ìgbá, garden egg), and a low after a high as a falling one (the second syllable of pákò, chewing stick). This is normal, not a mistake. The app grades the steady level of each syllable and skips the boundary glide, so hold each syllable steady at its level.

The confusable levels

Three pairs trip learners up most. High vs mid: both near the top half of your range; the difference is level alone, which is why calibration matters. Mid vs low: the mirror image at the bottom. Halfway between two levels: the app reports this honestly as unclear rather than guessing, because a true halfway contour is genuinely ambiguous. The lesson names the level to aim for: do, re, or mi.

Learn more

These links open other websites in a new tab. Yoruba Tone Trainer isn't affiliated with any of them and sends them nothing.

Privacy

• Your voice never leaves your device. It is analysed in your browser frame by frame and immediately discarded. Nothing is recorded, uploaded or shared.
• No accounts, ads, cookies, analytics or trackers. The app loads nothing from other websites: the code is served from this site, and a security policy blocks connections anywhere else.
• Stored on your device only: which items you've tried, your points, badges, practice days and settings, your calibrated voice range, and whether you've seen the welcome message, in your browser's local storage. Clear it any time in Settings → Clear progress, or with the Offline proof → Delete all my data button, or by clearing this site's data in your browser.
• Offline copy: after your first visit, your browser keeps a copy of the app so it works offline. Clearing site data removes it.

Disclaimer

This is a home practice tool, not a teacher, therapist or safety device. Everything runs on your device: no video, audio or images are sent anywhere. Feedback is automatic and can be wrong. For real instruction, learn from Yoruba speakers or a Yoruba teacher, linked on the Resources page.

Tone values taught here are Standard Yoruba citation tones. Regional dialects realise them differently. The app grades single syllables and two-syllable words held steady; it does not grade full sentences, and it does not check grammar, vocabulary, or meaning.

Accessibility

All controls are keyboard operable, the live check announces results to screen readers, and celebrations respect reduced-motion settings. The pitch display is a visual aid only: every result is also given as text, and the target level can be heard with Hear the target.

Credits

Yoruba Tone Trainer is built by Toolantern. Pitch detection (autocorrelation), tone classification, voice-range calibration, and the synthetic reference tones are original code written for this app in js/pitch.js. All lesson content is original. Tone values follow the standard descriptions of Yoruba's three level tones (high, mid, low; do, re, mi).