BaoYiTalk ← Back

support · for parents

Help with BaoYiTalk

BaoYiTalk is a trilingual first-words app for ages 1 to 4. Your child taps a big picture card and hears the word in English, Bahasa Melayu or Mandarin, or all three one after another.

The same words come back in 16 short sentences and four narrated tales, including two Sang Kancil stories.

Getting around

How do I open the settings?

Press and hold the gear for a full three seconds.

That's the parent gate. A toddler tap does nothing at all, which is the point. Let go too early and nothing happens, so just hold longer.

How do I switch languages?

ENBM中文×3

Tap a language chip. It applies across words, sentences and stories.

×3 plays all three languages back to back on a single tap. That's the mode the app exists for.

How do I change modes?

The picture tiles along the top switch between Words, Sentences and Stories. Words is always the default. A toddler picks by shape, not by reading the label.

My child is stuck inside a story

They aren't. The ✕ is large, always on the top layer, and never gated. One tap exits from any page.

Auto-advance also stops dead on the last page rather than looping.

Sound

There's no sound

  1. Turn the volume up — silent mode is not the cause, since the app is set to speak even with the ringer switch off.
  2. Disconnect Bluetooth headphones or a speaker if audio is being sent somewhere else.
  3. Close and reopen the app so its audio session is set up again.
  4. Check that a voice for that language is installed — see the next answer.

The voice sounds flat or robotic — can it be better?

Yes, and it's the single biggest improvement you can make. iOS ships a thin, compact voice by default and hides the good ones behind a download. BaoYiTalk always picks the best voice installed.

Settings › Accessibility › Spoken Content › Voices › [the language] › tap a voice to download

Do it for all three: English, Bahasa Melayu and Mandarin.

The app shows a card behind the parent gate when a language is still on the low-quality tier. Dismiss it once you've sorted it.

A Mandarin word sounds mispronounced

Please tell me which one. A native ear catches things no automated check can, and this is the kind of report that genuinely improves the app.

A few polyphone traps are pinned by hand: 睡着 as shuì zháo, 数一数 as shǔ, 背 as bèi. That table can only cover what's been caught.

A Malay or Mandarin word isn't how we say it at home

Tell me that too. Households differ, and the word list is meant to sound like a Malaysian list built rather than an English list translated.

The register is deliberate: spoken Malaysian rather than textbook (mama not emak), and caregiver Mandarin (狗狗, 车车).

Recording your own voice

Not available yet — here is the honest answer

Recording your own voice so your child hears you read the words is the feature this app is aiming at, and it is not built.

There's no record button in the app today, and BaoYiTalk doesn't ask for microphone permission at all, because there's nothing to record with. So there's also nothing to delete. If you're looking for a record button, you're not missing it.

When it ships, the commitments are already written down:

Until then, the privacy policy says plainly that the microphone is unused.

Also planned, also not built

The BaoYiTalk Family tier is what those features are meant to unlock, which is why it is not on sale yet. It goes on sale when they exist.

Content and pictures

Why sheep instead of pigs in the three-siblings story?

Babi is religiously loaded in Malay, and pigs are absent from the Malay children's canon. Biri-biri is uncontroversial in Malay, Chinese and Indian Malaysian homes alike.

Nothing is lost. The story engine is identical: three siblings, three houses, a predator, the sturdy house wins.

All four tales are the gentle version: nobody is eaten, nobody is hurt, everyone ends safe.

The pictures are emoji

They are, deliberately for now. Emoji are professionally drawn, instantly recognisable to a toddler, crisp at any size, and need nothing downloaded. Commissioned illustration is what eventually replaces them.

An empty box instead of a picture is a known font defect on some simulators and development devices, not the app. It renders normally on a real iPhone or iPad.

Does it need the internet?

No. BaoYiTalk makes no network calls at all, so airplane mode changes nothing. No ads, no analytics, no account, no data collection. Details in the privacy policy.

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Still stuck?

One person reads this inbox.

For a sound or pronunciation problem, include your device, your iOS version, the language, and the exact word or line.

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