1. These terms
These terms are an agreement between you and Terra Virgo Corporation, a California corporation based in Fairfax, California (“we”, “us”), about your use of Speak Tongues: the apps for iPhone and Android, the website at speaktongues.com, and the page guests use to join a group conversation. By using Speak Tongues, or by joining a conversation as a guest, you agree to them. If you don't agree, please don't use it.
Our privacy policy explains how we handle your information and is part of these terms.
2. The service
Speak Tongues transcribes and translates speech and text with artificial intelligence. You can use it for a one-on-one conversation, for a group conversation in which each person speaks and hears their own language, and to translate the text in a photo of a sign or menu. People can join a group conversation as guests from a link or code, without an account.
We work to keep Speak Tongues available and accurate, but we may change, add or remove features, and it may sometimes be unavailable, for example for maintenance or because a provider we rely on is down.
3. Who can use it
You must be at least 13 years old to use Speak Tongues. If you are under 18, or under the age at which your country lets you agree to terms like these on your own, you need a parent's or guardian's permission, and they agree to these terms for you. Parents can use their phone's parental controls to manage in-app purchases.
4. Your account
You sign in with your email address and a one-time code we email you; there's no password. Keep access to your email secure, because anyone who can read it can sign in as you. Give a real first name and choose the language you speak; your first name is shown to the people in your group conversations. You're responsible for what happens under your account. If you think someone else has used it, tell us at support@speaktongues.com.
You can delete your account at any time; see deleting your account.
5. Paying: your tab
Speak Tongues is free to download. You pay only for what you use, through a running tab:
- Each conversation and each sign translation adds its cost to your tab, at the prices shown in the app. The estimates on our pricing page are a guide, not a quote; the app shows what a conversation costs as it runs.
- You can start conversations and translate signs while your tab is under $1.00. Once it reaches $1.00, you need to pay it before you start the next one. A conversation that has already started is not stopped because of your tab.
- You pay through an in-app purchase from Apple's App Store or Google Play, under their terms. The stores only sell set amounts, so the payment is rounded up to the nearest one, and the difference is kept as credit on your account and used first next time.
- Credit has no cash value, can't be transferred to another account and is not refundable by us, except where the law requires. It is deleted if you delete your account.
- Your tab and credit are kept in US dollars. Apple and Google show prices in your own currency and take care of any sales tax or VAT.
- We may change our prices. A change applies only to use after it takes effect, never to what you already used.
6. Refunds
Because payments are made through Apple or Google, refunds are handled by them under their policies: ask Apple or Google Play. When a payment is refunded, the credit it added is removed from your account, which may leave an amount owed on your tab. If you think we charged your tab for something that went wrong, write to support@speaktongues.com and we'll look into it.
7. The host pays for everyone
The person who starts a one-on-one or group conversation is its host. Everything used in the conversation is charged to the host's tab, including what guests say and hear. Guests pay nothing.
Each conversation has a spending limit, $10 unless the host changes it. When the conversation reaches its limit, it pauses until the host raises the limit or ends it. The host can remove people and end the conversation at any time.
8. Guests
Guests join without an account and agree to these terms by joining. Before joining, each guest sees a notice, in their own language, that their speech is transcribed and translated by AI and that the host keeps the transcript. A guest can leave at any time and can download their own copy of the transcript for 30 minutes after the conversation ends.
9. AI translation can be wrong
Transcription and translation are done automatically by AI. They can mishear words, miss meaning, tone or context, get names and numbers wrong, or arrive late. Pronunciation guides are approximate.
Do not rely on Speak Tongues for medical, legal, financial, safety or emergency matters, or anywhere a mistake could cause harm. In those situations, use a qualified human interpreter or translator, and in an emergency, call your local emergency number. You're responsible for how you use and rely on what Speak Tongues produces.
10. Telling people and getting their consent
You are responsible for telling the people you talk with that you are using Speak Tongues to transcribe and translate the conversation, and for getting their consent wherever the law requires it.
Laws about recording conversations differ from place to place. In California, for example, recording a confidential conversation requires the consent of everyone in it. Speak Tongues turns speech into text and keeps a transcript, so treat using it like recording.
- In a group conversation, each guest sees a notice and agrees to it by joining. Anyone who joins later sees it too.
- In a one-on-one conversation, the other person sees no notice unless you show or tell them. Tell them before you start.
- Don't use Speak Tongues to secretly record, listen in on or transcribe people who haven't agreed, such as a conversation you aren't part of.
11. Acceptable use
Don't use Speak Tongues to:
- break the law, or help someone else break it;
- harass, threaten, bully or stalk anyone, or to spread hate;
- record or monitor people without the consent the law requires;
- share content you don't have the right to share, or that exploits or harms children;
- get around the tab, spending limits, payments or other limits, or use someone else's account;
- interfere with Speak Tongues, probe or break its security, guess conversation codes, or overload it;
- copy, scrape or resell the service, or use it to build a competing product or to train AI models;
- send content that breaks the usage policies of our AI provider, OpenAI.
We may remove content, stop a conversation or suspend an account that breaks these rules.
12. Your content
What you say, write and photograph stays yours. You give us permission to process it (transcribe, translate, speak, store in your history for 30 days and show it to the people in your conversation) only to provide Speak Tongues to you and the people you talk with. We don't use it to train AI models. You confirm that you have the right to share what you put into Speak Tongues, including other people's words where the law requires their consent.
13. Our part
Speak Tongues, its apps, website, design, name and logo belong to Terra Virgo Corporation. We give you a personal, limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable and revocable permission to use Speak Tongues as these terms allow. Don't copy, change, reverse-engineer or redistribute the apps, except where the law allows it. If you send us ideas or feedback, we may use them without owing you anything.
14. Ending your use
You can stop using Speak Tongues and delete your account at any time. We may suspend or end your access if you break these terms, if we must for legal reasons, or to protect Speak Tongues or other people. If we decide to stop offering Speak Tongues altogether, we'll tell you in advance where we reasonably can. The sections of these terms that by their nature should continue (for example, about payments owed, disclaimers, limits of liability and disputes) continue after your use ends.
15. Disclaimers
Speak Tongues is provided “as is” and “as available”. To the fullest extent the law allows, we make no promises beyond those in these terms, including any implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, accuracy or non-infringement. We don't promise that transcriptions or translations will be accurate or complete, or that Speak Tongues will always be available or free of errors.
16. Limitation of liability
To the fullest extent the law allows, Terra Virgo Corporation and the people who work for it are not liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages, or for lost profits, data or goodwill, arising from your use of Speak Tongues or from relying on a translation, even if we were told such damage was possible.
To the fullest extent the law allows, our total liability for any claim about Speak Tongues is limited to the greater of the amount you paid us in the 12 months before the claim and $50.
Some places don't allow these limits, so they may not all apply to you. Nothing in these terms limits liability that can't be limited by law, or takes away rights you have as a consumer that can't be waived.
17. If someone makes a claim against us
If someone brings a claim against us because of how you used Speak Tongues in breach of these terms or the law (for example, by transcribing people without the consent the law requires), you agree to cover our reasonable costs and losses from that claim, to the extent the law allows.
18. Apple and Google
If you got the app from Apple's App Store:
- These terms are between you and Terra Virgo Corporation, not Apple. We, not Apple, are responsible for the app and its content.
- Apple has no obligation to provide maintenance or support for the app.
- If the app fails to meet a warranty that applies, you may notify Apple, and Apple will refund the app's purchase price, if any (the app is free to download). To the fullest extent the law allows, Apple has no other warranty obligation for the app.
- We, not Apple, are responsible for any claims about the app, including product liability claims, claims that it fails to meet legal or regulatory requirements, and consumer protection or privacy claims.
- If anyone claims that the app infringes their intellectual property, we, not Apple, are responsible for investigating, defending and settling it.
- You confirm that you are not in a country subject to a US government embargo or designated as supporting terrorism, and that you are not on a US government list of prohibited or restricted parties.
- Apple and its subsidiaries are third-party beneficiaries of these terms and may enforce them against you.
Your use of the App Store or Google Play is also subject to Apple's and Google's own terms.
19. Governing law and disputes
These terms are governed by the laws of the State of California, without regard to its conflict-of-law rules. Any dispute about Speak Tongues or these terms will be decided in the state or federal courts located in Marin County, California, and you and we agree to those courts' jurisdiction. If you live in the European Union, the United Kingdom or another country whose laws give you the right to bring claims in your local courts or to the protection of your local consumer law, these terms don't take that right away. Before going to court, please write to us at support@speaktongues.com; most problems can be solved that way.
20. Changes to these terms
We may update these terms. We'll post the new version here with a new effective date, and if a change is significant, we'll tell you in the app or by email before it takes effect. If you keep using Speak Tongues after a change takes effect, the new terms apply. If you don't agree with them, stop using Speak Tongues and delete your account.
21. General
If a court finds part of these terms unenforceable, the rest still applies. If we don't enforce a part of these terms right away, we can still enforce it later. You can't transfer your rights under these terms to someone else; we may transfer ours to a company that takes over Speak Tongues. These terms, with the privacy policy, are the whole agreement between you and us about Speak Tongues.
22. Contact
Terra Virgo Corporation
Fairfax, California, United States
support@speaktongues.com