ISSUE 01 — TONE AS SOCIAL TECHNOLOGY
KO · JA · EN · ZH / TOKYO–SEOUL / MAY 2026
It's not translation.
It helps you
sound natural.
Japanese keigo, Korean jondaetmal, global business English, Chinese — polished right inside Slack, email, and LinkedIn.
04
Languages
ko · ja · en · zh
08
Tone modes
polite — global
~1.4″
Response
for 800-char input
You can write it. It's hitting send that's hard.
People who work in a foreign language hesitate every day. Is this rude? Too formal? Safe to send to a manager? A 30-second message becomes a 10-minute edit — and you still send the literal version and regret it.
FOOTNOTE — Roughly 2 million foreign workers live in Japan, and hundreds of millions of business emails flow between Korea, Japan, and China every day. The tone choice is yours, every time.
A · Tokyo, Korean PM
“I got tired of Googling "ご確認のほど" every single time.”
B · Seoul, global-team engineer
“I sent "I can't do that." as-is and the room went cold.”
C · Shanghai, Korean startup
“Client emails take half an hour each — this isn't really work.”
"About what I sent last week…"
Korean draft → Japanese business tone. Try switching tone modes.
Draft · KO
17 chars · 0.0sDid the thing I sent last week ever get through?
Context
Second reminder to a vendor PM. One week past deadline.
Tone mode
Rewrite · JA · BOSS / CLIENT
1.4s · safe default先日お送りした件につきまして、ご確認のほどよろしくお願いいたします。お忙しいところ恐れ入ります。
Explanation
The original ‘still not done?’ can read as pressing in Japanese business culture. We reframed it as a polite reminder — ‘ご確認のほど’ plus ‘お忙しいところ恐れ入ります’ to respect the reader's time — and avoided the blunt literal ‘まだですか?’.
▶ Hover the tone buttons. All outputs are grounded in the §9.5 anchor set.
Not just another rewriter.
| TOOL | KO | JA | EN | ZH | SLACK/MAIL | WORKPLACE MODES | /mo |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grammarly Premium | – | – | ◎ | – | ◎ | △ | $30 |
| Wordtune | – | – | ◎ | – | ○ | △ | $9.99 |
| DeepL Write Pro | – | – | ◎ | – | △ | △ | $10+ |
| DeepL + ChatGPT | ○ | ○ | ○ | ○ | – | – | $20+ |
| ToneBridgeOURS | ◎ | ◎ | ◎ | ◎ | ◎ | ◎ 8 | ¥980 |
◎ FIRST-CLASS · ○ SUPPORTED · △ PARTIAL · – NOT SUPPORTED · SOURCE: §3.5 PRODUCT SPEC, 2026-05
i
Korean, Japanese, English, Chinese together
Grammarly and DeepL Write are English-first. East Asian business tone is something only we cover.
ii
Eight workplace tone modes
Not vague 'formal/casual' — but 'soft refusal,' 'apology + reminder,' 'for managers and clients.'
iii
Wherever you write
The web workspace for depth, the Chrome extension for flow. Right inside Slack, Gmail, LinkedIn.
iv
We explain the why
Not just an answer, but why this phrasing was chosen — like a coach sitting next to you.
v
Privacy by default
Source text isn't stored by default. Sensitive-info warnings. A posture your IT team can approve.
Tone is not a slider.
It's a two-dimensional landscape.
Warmth and formality, directness and care meet on a plane. The eight tone modes are not just labels — they are the places your message needs to land.
Polite(0.55,0.42)
POLITE
Soft refusal(0.78,0.74)
SOFT REFUSAL
Manager · Client(0.90,0.50)
BOSS / CLIENT
Concise(0.22,0.18)
CONCISE
Apology · Reminder(0.72,0.85)
APOLOGY / REMIND
Meeting request(0.62,0.30)
MEETING REQUEST
Slack casual(0.15,0.55)
SLACK CASUAL
Neutral English(0.40,0.20)
NEUTRAL
TONE MAP
(0.55, 0.42)
DIRECT — 直接
DEFERENT — 配慮
CASUAL — 親近
FORMAL — 公式
polite
soft refusal
boss / client
concise
apology / remind
meeting request
slack casual
neutral
Current coordinate: Polite — All-purpose business tone
Right where you write.
01 · WEB
Web workspace
Unhurried drafting. Three candidates, the reasoning, length controls.
WORKSPACE
Did the thing I sent last week ever get through?
About the message I sent the other day — could you confirm…
02 · CHROME
Chrome extension
A side panel over Slack, Gmail, and LinkedIn. ⌘⇧Y to summon it.
# product
Could you share the meeting notes from that day?
TONEBRIDGE
Would you mind sharing that day's meeting notes…
03 · SLACK
SOONSlack app (soon)
Team-wide tone policies, slash commands, mention-based rewrites.
SLACK APP · PHASE 5
/tone polite "Could you share the meeting notes from that day?"
→ Team-wide tone policy / per-channel defaults
→ Team-wide tone policy / per-channel defaults
Pay for what you use.
¥980 / month.
One-tenth of a bowl of ramen. 500 rewrites a month, every tone mode, the Chrome extension included. For the first 200 sign-ups, Founder ¥480/mo is live — locked in for six months.
See full pricing →Your next sentence,
exactly as you meant it.
Email magic link in 30 seconds. 10 free rewrites.