Terms of Use

Version v5, 1 October 2026.

Who we are

Semaphore is built and maintained by Andrei Vasilev, an individual based in Georgia. That is the party you enter into an agreement with by accepting these Terms; the Terms are governed by the law of Georgia, unless the law of your country gives you, as a consumer, stronger protection. Write to us at millenium050@gmail.com — the "Email us" button on the "Profile" tab opens an email to this address.

What Semaphore is

Semaphore is a pronunciation trainer for French and English. You say a phrase or a word, the app scores your pronunciation and shows what sounds good and what needs work. There is a daily set of phrases, a word of the day, a course on similar-sounding words, a reference guide to the sounds of your chosen language with explanations, and a vocabulary list with the history of your attempts.

The app is a learning tool. It is not a taught course, not an exam, and not a certification.

Signing in

You sign in with Apple. We have no separate password, so there is nothing to lose: access is controlled by your Apple account.

One account is for one person. Do not share your access with others.

Age

Semaphore's age rating on the App Store varies by region and iOS version; the current rating is shown on the app's App Store page. The account is created and the subscription is taken out by someone entitled to enter into an agreement and to pay: for a child, that is a parent or guardian. They are the one who accepts these Terms and decides whether the child's voice recording may be processed as described in the Privacy Policy.

Automatic scoring makes mistakes, and we say so

Scoring is done by an automatic speech engine. It errs both ways: sometimes it nitpicks correct speech, sometimes it misses a real mistake. We have measured this and know the limits:

• it does not assess liaison between words at all;
• a swallowed word ending often goes unnoticed and still scores high;
• on some individual sounds, correct speech gets a low score — that is engine noise, not your mistake.

That is why the product is deliberately cautious: where we are not confident, the app shows a score but does not claim you are pronouncing something wrong. A word is marked red only when the engine itself is confident of a mistake. We checked the colour boundaries against real recordings; for English we have few such recordings so far, and the boundaries will still be refined.

We make no promises about learning outcomes. A score in the app is not an assessment of your level in the language you are learning and not proof of any qualification.

What we do not promise

Semaphore is not a medical service. We diagnose and treat nothing — no speech or hearing conditions. The app does not replace a speech therapist, a doctor, or a teacher. Questions about your speech or hearing health belong with a specialist, not with us.

What is free

Every pronunciation score is a paid request to an external engine, so the number of scores per day is limited. On your first day of practice you get 20 scores and the full daily phrase set for free. After that, without a subscription, you get 6 scores and 3 phrases a day, the first lesson of the course, the vocabulary and the sound guide. The limit follows your time zone and resets with your new day.

Limits may change, up or down. You will learn about it in the same place a limit stops you: in the app.

The Sémaphore Plus subscription

The subscription unlocks 40 scores a day, the full daily phrase set, personal phrases built around your weak words, and every lesson of the course. There are two plans — monthly and yearly — and both renew automatically.

Price. The exact price in your local currency is shown by the App Store on the payment screen before you confirm the purchase. Prices may change. Apple will warn you in advance of any increase; where Apple's rules require it, Apple will ask whether you wish to continue, and otherwise the renewal goes through at the new price after the notice — you can cancel before that as usual.

Free trial. A free trial may be available on your first subscription — currently 7 days; its length is shown on the payment screen too. If you do not turn off auto-renewal before the trial ends, the subscription becomes paid and the charge goes through automatically. The trial is offered once per Apple account.

Auto-renewal and cancellation. The subscription renews for the same period, and your Apple account is charged within the last 24 hours before the current period ends — unless you turned auto-renewal off at least 24 hours before that moment. You can turn it off in your Apple ID settings ("Subscriptions") or from the app: "Profile" tab → "Manage subscription". Access stays until the end of the paid period; we do not refund the unused remainder.

Payment and refunds are handled by Apple. The purchase is sold by Apple, the charge goes to your Apple ID, and we never see your card number. Refunds are also Apple's alone — through the "Report a Problem" page (reportaproblem.apple.com) or Apple Support; we have neither a button nor the right to refund a payment.

Restoring. The subscription is tied to the Semaphore account it was taken out in. If you reinstalled the app or changed phones, tap "Restore purchases" on the subscription screen after signing in to the same account. It cannot be restored in a different Semaphore account.

Deleting your account does NOT cancel the subscription. Deletion erases your data with us, but the subscription is run by Apple, and charges continue until you turn off auto-renewal with Apple yourself. A paid subscription cannot be restored in a new account, so cancel it BEFORE deleting — the app reminds you of this in the deletion dialog.

Your content

Your voice recordings, your name and your results are yours. We process them as described in the Privacy Policy and use them for nothing else.

The app's own material — phrases, translations, sound explanations, reference audio — is ours or licensed from its authors on their terms (open-source licences are listed in the app on the "Licences" screen). You may not reuse it in your own products.

What you may not do

• work around the app's limits, quotas and checks;
• access our server automatically, outside the app;
• upload someone else's recordings as your own speech purely to fool the scoring;
• break the service or interfere with other people using it.

If you do, we may restrict your access.

The service may change or end

Semaphore is under active development: screens, mechanics and content change. We may change the app, and we may suspend or discontinue the service. If the service closes in the middle of a paid subscription period, any refund is decided by Apple under its own rules.

These terms may also be updated — for example when new features appear. We will tell you in the app about material changes, and if what you agreed to changes, we will ask for your consent again: consent is versioned, and an old "yes" does not carry over to a new text.

Liability

The app is provided as is. We work to keep it running and scoring honestly, but we are not liable for the score matching a teacher's opinion, for outages of external services, or for your learning results.