Why do my questions sound like statements (or the other way around)?

Because in English, pitch direction carries grammatical meaning independent of word order, and if your pitch contour doesn't move the way the sentence type expects, a listener can misread the intent before they've even finished processing the words.

30-second version: Yes/no questions ("Are you coming?") typically end with rising pitch; statements and most wh-questions ("Where are you going?") typically end with a fall. That rise or fall isn't decorative — it's how English marks a question as a question when the word order alone doesn't make it obvious, and getting it backwards can make a genuine question sound like a flat statement, or make a statement sound tentative and unfinished.

Why this trips learners up

Many languages mark questions primarily through grammar — a question particle, a different word order, a verb conjugation — with intonation playing a smaller or different role. English does use word order for questions too (auxiliary verb first: "Are you...", "Did she..."), but it leans heavily on pitch as well, especially in casual speech where the grammatical marking can be minimal ("You're coming?" is a complete, common question that differs from the statement "You're coming." by intonation alone).

A learner whose first language doesn't lean on pitch the same way often produces the correct words in the correct order but with a flat or falling contour throughout, because pitch wasn't doing grammatical work in their first language and the instinct to move it deliberately at the end of a sentence isn't there yet.

How sayit reads the contour

sayit's intonation score is computed from the actual pitch track across the utterance, compared against the pattern expected for that kind of sentence — so a yes/no question that ends flat, or a statement that rises unexpectedly at the end, shows up as a specific mismatch rather than getting folded into a generic low score. Because this measurement is independent of word-level pronunciation accuracy, you can have every word scored good and still see a low intonation number — which is the exact signal that the sentence, not any individual word, is where the fix belongs.

What the fix looks like

Practice exaggerating the contour first, then dial it back. For a yes/no question, let your pitch climb noticeably on the last stressed syllable — it should feel almost too much at first, like you're asking in disbelief. For a statement or a wh-question, let the pitch fall and settle on the final stressed syllable rather than trailing off flat or, worse, rising by habit.

A genuinely useful trick: hum the sentence without the words, just the pitch contour. If you can't hear a clear rise or fall in the hum, the words won't carry one either.

Drill it

Record: "Are you coming to the party tonight?" A textbook yes/no question — the pitch should climb through the final few words.

Record: "Where are you going after the meeting?" A wh-question, which in most contexts falls at the end despite being a question — this is the pair that trips people up most, because "it's a question" gets over-applied to mean "it must rise."

Say both back to back and compare — the grammatical rise-vs-fall split is much easier to hear as a contrast than in isolation. The word stress and intonation guide has more sentence types if these two aren't your specific pattern.

How do I know it's improving?

The intonation score moving independently of accuracy is the signal to watch — if it climbs across a few sessions while accuracy stays flat, the fix is actually working on the thing that was broken. Testing yourself on a wh-question and a yes/no question in the same session is more informative than repeating one type, since the two need genuinely opposite contours and it's easy to fix one while accidentally overcorrecting the other.

Try it

Open sayit free — no install, no card — and record both sentences above back to back. If your intonation score is similar for both despite them needing opposite contours, that's the specific thing to work on next.