Privacy policy

Bamen, Bamen Learning. Last updated 2026-11-07.

Who we are

Bamen is a Japanese listening and speaking course published by Bamen Learning (bamenlearning.com). Questions about privacy or your data: bamen@bamenlearning.com.

What stays on your phone

Your study progress (which cards you have seen and when they are due), XP, streaks, stamps, your display name, avatar choice and settings are stored on your device.

Speaking practice uses your phone’s built-in speech recognizer. Audio is handled by the Android speech service (on most phones, Google’s), not by us; we only receive the recognized text, compare it to the sentence on the card, and discard it.

What we store if you create an account

If you sign in with Google or email, we store your email address, your name as provided by Google, and a copy of your study progress so it can be restored and synced between devices. This is stored with Supabase, our database provider, on servers in the United States, encrypted in transit and at rest.

Accounts are optional. You can use the app without one.

Purchases

Subscriptions are processed by Google Play. We never see your card details. We use RevenueCat to check whether your subscription is active; RevenueCat receives an anonymous app user ID (or your account ID if you are signed in) and your purchase receipts.

Usage analytics and crash reports

If enabled in this build, the app sends anonymous usage events (for example: a session was finished, the paywall was shown, a listening test was completed) to PostHog, and crash reports to Sentry, so we can see what works and fix errors. These contain no names, emails, typed text or audio, no advertising IDs, and IP addresses are not stored.

You can switch this off any time in Account → Privacy.

Card reports

When you report a problem with a card, we store the card, the problem type, your optional note and the app version (and your account ID if signed in) to fix the content.

Microphone

“Record & compare” records your voice on the phone so you can play it back. The recording never leaves your phone and is discarded when you leave the card.

What we do not do

No advertising, no ad tracking, no selling or sharing of personal data with data brokers.

Notifications

Practice reminders and the “trial ends soon” reminder are scheduled locally on your phone. You can turn them off in the Account tab or in Android settings.

Deleting your data

Account → Delete account permanently removes your account and the cloud copy of your progress. Account → Reset all progress erases your progress. You can also request deletion at bamenlearning.com/delete-account.

Deleting your account does not cancel a Google Play subscription; cancel it in Google Play → Payments & subscriptions.

Children

Bamen is not directed at children under 13 and we do not knowingly collect their personal data.

Changes

We will update the date above and tell you in the app if this policy changes in a way that matters.