What ummute does on WhatsApp

What ummute is

ummute is an English speaking coach and friend on WhatsApp, made and run in Britain. There is nothing to install and no account to make: write to it, or send a voice note. Its replies come from software, not from a person.

A conversation

Tell ummute what is coming up, such as an interview, and it talks with you about it. It may offer a sentence for you to send as a voice note, then tells you how it went. A sentence is only an offer until you try it, or tap Say it better. Rather just talk? Say so, and it keeps to that until you ask for practice again.

Voice notes

ummute turns a voice note into words and measures five things: your pace, where you paused, the word that carried the most weight, whether the end rose or fell, and fillers (um, uh).

The three buttons

Under a voice note in English of eight words or more, when it could be measured, usually comes a message with three buttons. Say it better gives what you said in natural spoken English, marked for pauses and stress, as your practice sentence. Hear it speaks that version aloud, up to twice a day. How I sounded says what was measured, and what changed since your last one.

A voice note in another language may get a short reply instead, at most once a week, inviting you to ask for the English of what you said.

Corrections

When your English slips in a typed message, ummute may say it the natural way. The correction comes as its own message after the reply, quoting what you typed, with the change in bold. Corrections are for English only. There is at most one a message and three a sitting, none when you seem to be having a hard time, or in the reply right after, and none once you ask not to be corrected.

Level, page and course

Ask where you stand and, after enough on two days or more, ummute gives two levels from one to ten: Speaking, from your voice notes, and English, from what you type. Your private page on ummute.com shows them, behind a six-digit code sent to your chat. Your page also shows your course: small steps for what you need English for. You finish a step by saying it in your own words on two different days.

When ummute writes first

ummute may write first, between nine in the morning and nine at night your time, and only within a day of your last message: at a time you asked for, about something you told it, or with a short fact about English.

Price and the free month

On WhatsApp the first month is free. After it, a plan costs your country’s price, by the month or the year (https://ummute.com/faq has the table), with no other plan, discount or trial. Nothing is charged now: there is no way to pay in the chat yet, and no payment link. When there is, it will be on Stripe’s own page; ummute never sees card details.

Your data

What ummute keeps, and how to have it removed, is in the privacy policy: https://ummute.com/privacy.

Pausing

Send PAUSE UMMUTE and ummute sends nothing more, neither replies nor messages of its own, until you send START. On WhatsApp there is nothing to cancel, because nothing is charged.