Straight answers, no small print

It's built for children aged 6 to 12 who are starting out with a language. It also works for teenagers and adult beginners who'd rather practise by singing than through grammar drills — the embarrassment of pronouncing has no age limit. The catalogue includes an adult line with its own settings.

Yes, and it is a very common case. Every line shows its translation into your language and its pronunciation written with your own letters, so you can follow the practice and understand what your child is singing without knowing the language. The app never assumes the adult speaks it.

FonoBeat teaches six languages — English, Spanish, French, German, Italian and Portuguese — and teaches them from seven home languages. Not every pair is ready at the same time, so the languages page tells you, pair by pair, which one you can start today and which one isn't there yet. The content is original songs and narrated stories, grouped into themed worlds, and every lesson has its five steps: listen, vocabulary, play, sing and the Challenge.

It's a song's final test: singing part of it with no help, with the pronunciation assessment listening to the attempt and coming back with kind feedback — what already sounds right and what's worth another go. Singing and practising line by line don't spend Challenges; how many are included depends on the plan.

It isn't an exam. The system compares your child's attempt with the reference and responds like a kind coach: it celebrates what already works and suggests what to repeat. The strictness adjusts across three modes (lenient, middle and demanding), and the adult chooses the mode.

It's processed to generate the feedback and discarded immediately. Never stored, never shared and never used to train AI systems. Only the result of the practice is kept — the stars on a line, for example.

Our general recommendation: a little every day beats a lot now and then. As a guide, 10 to 15 minutes around age 6, 15 to 20 around age 9 and 20 to 30 around age 12. Each lesson is designed for 15 to 25 minutes of work across its five steps.

Today practice needs a connection — Challenges in particular, because the pronunciation assessment happens in the cloud. We'd rather tell you plainly than promise an offline mode that doesn't exist yet.

No. The whole catalogue is our own content, written for learning: safe, age-appropriate lyrics, useful vocabulary by level, careful pronunciation and separate vocal and instrumental tracks — that last part is what makes it possible to turn the singer down so your child can sing over the top.

In the core mechanic: instead of loose exercises, your child sings real songs with the lyrics lighting up word by word in four layers (lyrics, phonetic alphabet, translation and sounded-out pronunciation), controls how much of the singer's voice comes along, and gets feedback that encourages rather than grades. And in the house rules: no ads, no storing their voice, and progress you can see.

It can happen — every child is different and we won't pretend otherwise. That's why the free plan asks for no card: try it for a few days and decide from what you see. Inside the app, the three modes (Sing, Practise, Challenge), the character-led levels and the streaks are designed to renew interest; if it still isn't their thing, you've lost nothing.

No, and be wary of any app that promises it does. FonoBeat is practice: the space where things get repeated, the ear gets trained and the fear of pronouncing wears off. It complements teaching by people — it even has a school mode — but it doesn't substitute for it.

In the parent dashboard: words practised, songs worked, day streak, practice minutes and current level. Real practice progress, not screen minutes in disguise.

Yes, with separate profiles: each child has their own progress, streak and songs. How many profiles depends on the plan — the detail is on the pricing page.

It teaches six: English, Spanish, French, German, Italian and Brazilian Portuguese. Pick the one your child wants to learn and the app puts the translation and the pronunciation in the language they already read.

The app isn't in the stores yet. When it is, the App Store and Google Play links will appear on this site. In the meantime you can try the interactive karaoke demo here on the web, with nothing to install.