I am an adult native English speaker learning Mandarin. I have an online tutor, and I am learning the tones and initial consonants. This app is very good for learning (through as much repetition as I like) to distinguish by ear the tones.
I am using the educator version of the app.
The audio is good quality by a native speaker, and as far as I can tell double syllables are being spoken spontaneously rather than being spliced together.
Variables that the app user can set: whether to be presented monosyllables and distinguish tones (one nice feature here is the option to use a simple finger-swipe to indicate which of the four tones you think you've heard), or to hear similar initial sounds, or pairs of tones, or to hear randomly any of the above.
When listening to double pinyin tones, the app user makes a multiple choice answer by clicking on one of 2 to 4 buttons with pinyin in each. The response system is intuitive and straightforward to use.
One feature that I would like to see would be to be able to hear the tone (or initial) I indicated (wrongly) I hear. This would give immediate aural feedback about the difference between what I'm actually presented and what I thought I heard.
Also, if it would be possible to see the Chinese character for the sound I'm hearing (along with the pinyin), I think I could learn to associate that at the same time.
Finally, I'm not sure if there is a way to reset my 'score', which is just a running count of correct vs. incorrect responses. Without this, the only way to track progress is to see a gradually increasing average rather than to be able to compare trials across sessions or days.
Overall a good app that fits the needs I have as a beginner student of Mandarin using pinyin.
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