Pick a dialogue, choose which of the two speakers you play, and read your lines out loud. SayMei transcribes what you actually said and lines it up against the pinyin on screen, syllable by syllable. It is free and unlimited: reading your role aloud does not draw on live lesson minutes.
Each syllable comes back matched or not matched, and the line gets an accuracy percentage — matched syllables over expected ones — so you know when to move on. A syllable counts as matched when the transcript gives the same character, or the same pinyin syllable with its tone mark ignored. So this measures whether you produced the right syllables in the right order, not whether your pitch was right. That limit is deliberate. In Mandarin the tone is part of the word — mā (妈) is mother, má (麻) is hemp, mǎ (马) is a horse, mà (骂) is to scold — and a tone verdict inferred from a transcript would be guesswork dressed up as a score. For pitch itself, the Mandarin Tone Trial records you and draws your contour against the target shape.
Third tone is the usual culprit, because the full dipping-then-rising shape drilled in isolation is not what speakers produce inside a sentence. Before another third tone it is said as a rising second tone, which is why 你好 comes out as ní hǎo. Before a first, second, or fourth tone it stays low and does not rise at all. Reading a whole line aloud, rather than one syllable at a time, is what exposes it: the sandhi only exists once the syllables sit next to each other. The syllable match here will not judge that for you, which is why a sound that keeps slipping belongs in the tone tools below.
This is scripted speaking: the words are in front of you, you set the pace, nothing is metered, and you can repeat a line twenty times without anyone waiting. That is the right tool for building the motor habit. It is not a conversation — nobody asks you an unexpected question. When you want that, talk with Mei Lin, who replies in real time and corrects you mid-sentence; those sessions run on live minutes, described on the pricing page.
Listen to the whole dialogue first in listening practice so you are copying a model rather than guessing. Shadow the audio once before recording. Then speak your role, and when the same syllable keeps failing, leave the dialogue and take that sound to the tone pair trainer — isolated tones are usually fine, and the errors appear where two syllables meet. Afterwards, swap to the other speaker's role and run the dialogue again.
Your speech is transcribed and lined up against the line on screen, character by character. A character counts as matched when the transcript gives the same character, or the same pinyin syllable with its tone mark ignored; matched characters light up as you read, and the line scores matched characters over expected ones.
No. Reading dialogue lines aloud is free and unlimited, and nothing about it is metered. Only unscripted live conversation with Mei Lin draws on speaking minutes, so you can repeat a difficult line as many times as you like at no cost.
Not directly. The match runs on syllables and ignores the tone mark, so a line can come back fully matched while a tone was off. That is the honest limit of a transcript, and inventing a tone score on top of one would not help you. Pitch is measured in the free Mandarin Tone Trial, which records you and compares your contour with the target shape, and drilled in the tone pair trainer.
A browser and a microphone are enough — a phone or a laptop both work, and nothing is installed. Grant microphone access when your browser asks, pick a dialogue, choose your role, and start reading. Everything happens on the page.
Not quite. Speaking practice is scripted: the lines are in front of you and you control the pace, which is what builds accurate pronunciation. A live lesson with Mei Lin is unscripted conversation with real-time correction. Most learners use the scripted mode to prepare for the live one.