Privacy Notice
Last updated: 17 August 2026
1. About SayChinese
SayChinese is an educational platform for practising Mandarin Chinese pronunciation. This notice describes the current SayChinese Service: there is no login or signup, and you do not need to give us your name or email address to use the core practice features.
2. Who is responsible for the service
SayChinese is responsible for the processing described in this notice.
Contact: hello.saychinese@outlook.com
3. Information processed when you use SayChinese
A. Practice content
When you type or paste a sentence to practise, that text may be processed temporarily to provide translation, review/correction suggestions, sentence segmentation, pinyin, and audio output — this is what makes the practice feature work. SayChinese does not keep a permanent record of your practice sentences in its own systems; sentence text is used to generate your practice output, not stored as ongoing history.
Your practice sentence content is not sent to analytics — not the sentence text, not translations, not pinyin, not audio content.
B. Necessary technical data
Free use of SayChinese is currently limited to 15 successfully prepared practice sentences per day, per browser. To enforce that limit, SayChinese sets a necessary, first-party anonymous browser identifier as a cookie. In practical terms, this identifier:
- is a randomly generated value — not your name, email, IP address, or browsing history;
- cannot be read by scripts running in your browser (it is an "HttpOnly" cookie), and is managed only by SayChinese's own servers;
- is used only to count how many sentences this browser has used today;
- is kept for roughly 400 days, so the daily limit keeps working correctly on return visits;
- is completely separate from the optional analytics identifier described below, and is set regardless of your analytics choice — it is necessary to provide the free, daily-limited service you are requesting, not optional telemetry.
C. Optional analytics data
Analytics are off by default and only start after you actively choose "Accept analytics", either from the first-visit notice or later from "Cookie Preferences". If you reject analytics, or simply close the first-visit notice without choosing, analytics stay off — closing the notice is never treated as agreeing to it.
Once analytics are switched on, we may measure things such as:
- page visits;
- successful practice sentences generated;
- practice sessions;
- use of audio playback;
- which practice mode (Natural Phrase or Smaller Learning Unit) is used, and switching between them;
- experience ratings you choose to give;
- reaching the daily practice limit;
- interest expressed in an expanded/future version of SayChinese;
- country-level usage.
We use PostHog, a product analytics provider, to record this information. PostHog assigns your browser an anonymous identifier so that actions from the same browser can be recognised as coming from the same anonymous analytics user across a visit and, if you return, later visits. This identifier is separate from the necessary sc_aid identifier described above, and is not linked to your name, email, or any other identifying information we hold. Because a persistent identifier is used, this is privacy-minimised, pseudonymous analytics for anonymous browser-based analytics users who have consented, rather than analytics with no identifier at all.
Country-level location information may be derived from your IP address as analytics events are received, so that country-level usage can be reported. Raw client IP is configured to be discarded after this permitted enrichment step. Session replay (recording your on-screen activity) and PostHog's automatic click/interaction tracking ("autocapture") are both switched off.
D. Feedback and expanded-version interest
If you choose to rate your experience (not great / okay / good) or tell us you're interested in a future/expanded version of SayChinese (yes / maybe later), we record that response as an analytics event, subject to the same analytics consent described above. A small number of on-device flags (for example, whether a rating or interest response was recently given) are stored in your browser so the same prompt doesn't repeatedly interrupt you — these flags do not contain your rating, your answer, or any sentence content.
4. Why we process this information
- to provide the SayChinese practice service you request (translation, pinyin, audio, review suggestions);
- to enforce the free daily usage limit fairly across anonymous browsers;
- with your consent, to understand how SayChinese is used and to improve it;
- with your consent, to assess satisfaction and gauge interest in a future/expanded version.
Necessary technical data (like sc_aid) is processed because it is required to provide the specific, limited free service you are using. Optional analytics is only ever processed with your consent, which you can withdraw at any time (see Section 9).
5. Cookies and similar storage
Necessary storage supports the service you asked for and can't be switched off separately while using SayChinese's free daily-limited practice feature without affecting how it works. This includes sc_aid (Section 3.B) and a small number of local browser flags that remember your consent choice and whether you've already seen certain prompts today.
Optional analytics storage is only set once you accept analytics. You can reject it from the start, and change your choice at any time through "Cookie Preferences" below. Closing or dismissing the first-visit notice is never treated as accepting analytics.
Temporary navigation storage. SayChinese also uses temporary, same-tab browser storage to carry the sentence you enter on the homepage to the practice page. This may temporarily hold the sentence you submitted; it is read once by the practice page and then cleared. It is used only for that immediate navigation step, is not kept as permanent sentence history, and is separate from optional analytics storage above — this content is not sent to analytics.
6. Analytics and service providers
- PostHog — product analytics, active only once you accept analytics.
- Vercel — hosts SayChinese, and (only once you accept analytics) may also collect basic visit and performance metrics through Vercel Analytics and Speed Insights.
- Translation, review, and pronunciation-audio providers — process a submitted sentence temporarily to generate the translation, correction suggestion, or audio you requested (Section 3.A). This content is not sent to our analytics provider.
We do not use analytics or advertising providers beyond what's listed here.
7. How long information is kept
- sc_aid (necessary technical identifier): kept for roughly 400 days from when it's set, so the daily limit keeps working correctly.
- Daily usage counters: automatically expire roughly 48 hours after the day they're recorded for.
- Analytics data (PostHog): retention is a setting of our PostHog project, not something controlled by this website's own code. We intend to keep analytics data only as long as reasonably needed for the purposes described above — the exact retention period should be confirmed in our PostHog project settings.
- Local browser flags (consent choice, prompt-shown flags, and similar): remain until you clear your browser storage; the first-visit notice's own "dismissed for now" flag is session-only and clears when you close the tab.
8. International processing
SayChinese is offered from Ireland/the EU. Some of the service providers described above — including hosting, analytics, translation, and pronunciation-audio providers — may process or store information outside Ireland or the European Economic Area. Where that happens, we expect those providers to apply appropriate safeguards for international transfers; this notice does not assert the exact transfer mechanism used by each individual provider — please check the relevant provider's own documentation if you need that detail.
9. Your choices
- Accept analytics — from the first-visit notice, or Cookie Preferences at any time.
- Reject analytics — analytics stay off, and SayChinese works exactly the same way.
- Change your analytics choice at any time via "Cookie Preferences" below.
- Contact hello.saychinese@outlook.com with any privacy question or request.
Necessary daily-limit storage (sc_aid) can't be disabled separately while using that limited free service without affecting how the limit works; it is never used for optional analytics.
10. Children and educational use
SayChinese is intended for users aged 16 and over. If you are under 16, please do not use SayChinese unless a parent or guardian has authorised your use and the optional analytics associated with it. SayChinese is an educational tool and may be used in a classroom setting, but a teacher's recommendation does not, on its own, provide that authorisation. If you believe a child has used SayChinese without the authorisation described above, please contact us at hello.saychinese@outlook.com.
11. Changes to this notice
We may update this notice from time to time, for example as SayChinese's features change as the Service develops. We'll update the "Last updated" date above when we do. Continuing to use SayChinese after an update means you accept the current version of this notice.