Legal

Terms of Service

Last updated: July 9, 2026

These Terms of Service ("Terms") govern your access to and use of Chénjìn 沉浸 ("Chénjìn," "we," "us," or "our"), including our website, reader, flashcards, games, and related features (the "Service"). By creating an account or otherwise using the Service, you agree to these Terms. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.

1. Eligibility

You must be at least 13 years old to use the Service. If you are between 13 and the age of majority in your jurisdiction, you confirm that a parent or legal guardian has reviewed and agreed to these Terms on your behalf.

2. Your Account

• You are responsible for the accuracy of the information you provide and for keeping your login credentials confidential
• You are responsible for all activity that occurs under your account
• One account per person — do not create multiple accounts to evade limits, bans, or tier restrictions
• You may delete your account at any time via Settings → Account → Danger Zone
• We may suspend or terminate accounts that violate these Terms, abuse the Service, or pose a security risk, with or without notice

3. Subscriptions and Billing

Chénjìn offers a Free tier and paid Plus and Pro subscription tiers, billed monthly through our payment processor, Stripe. A separate, invite-only Patron tier is available to long-time community contributors. Current pricing and features for each tier are listed on our Pricing page.

• Paid subscriptions to Plus and Pro include a 7-day free trial; you will not be charged until the trial ends, and you may cancel any time before then to avoid being charged
• Subscriptions automatically renew each billing period until you cancel
• You can manage or cancel your subscription any time from Settings → Manage billing
• Fees are non-refundable except where required by law or at our discretion
• We may change subscription pricing going forward; we will give you advance notice before any change takes effect on your next billing cycle

4. Your Content

You retain ownership of the text, audio, comments, and other content you submit to the Service ("User Content"). By submitting User Content, you grant Chénjìn a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to host, store, reproduce, adapt (for example, segmenting text or generating timestamps), and display that content as necessary to operate and improve the Service, including showing public content to other users.

You are solely responsible for your User Content and confirm that:

• You own it or have the necessary rights and permissions to upload and share it
• It does not infringe any third party's copyright, trademark, privacy, or other rights
• It does not violate any law or these Terms

We do not pre-screen User Content but may remove any content, or suspend the account that submitted it, that we believe violates these Terms or applicable law.

Audio uploads and the pronunciation library. When you upload audio to pronunciation-practice features (such as the Tone Coach) or capture audio clips while mining flashcards from videos, we may extract short word-level excerpts (approximately four seconds or less, limited to a small number of samples per word) and add them to a shared pronunciation library so that other learners can hear how individual words sound in natural speech. This processing is designed for personal study and language education:

• Only brief word-level excerpts enter the shared library — your full recording is never published, listed, or made available to other users
• Excerpts are stored privately and served only to logged-in members through time-limited access links; they are not publicly downloadable or redistributed outside the Service
• By uploading or capturing audio, you confirm you have the rights or permission needed to use that audio for your own study and to allow this excerpting
• If you believe an excerpt in the library infringes your rights, contact us at admin@chenjinmandarin.com and we will review and remove it

5. Acceptable Use

You agree not to:

• Upload or share content that is illegal, infringing, defamatory, hateful, or harassing
• Harass, abuse, or threaten other users
• Spam, or use the contribution-points or community systems in bad faith (for example, vote manipulation, fake reports, or creating accounts to inflate your own standing)
• Scrape, crawl, or use automated means to access the Service beyond normal use, or attempt to circumvent rate limits or subscription-tier restrictions
• Reverse-engineer, decompile, or attempt to extract the source code of the Service, except where permitted by law
• Probe, test, or attempt to breach the security of the Service without our prior written authorization
• Use the Service to develop a competing product

6. AI-Generated Content

Some features — including example sentences, translations, sentence-mining suggestions, pronunciation scoring, and audio transcription — are generated or assisted by third-party AI services (OpenAI and Microsoft Azure). AI-generated content may occasionally be inaccurate, incomplete, or inappropriate. It is provided to support your learning and is not a substitute for professional instruction or certified translation.

7. Third-Party Services

The Service integrates with third-party services such as Stripe (payments), YouTube (embedded videos for Video Study), and AnkiConnect (optional local flashcard sync with the Anki desktop app). Your use of these third-party services is subject to their own terms, and we are not responsible for their availability, content, or practices.

8. Intellectual Property

The Service itself — including its software, design, branding, and any Chénjìn-authored content (such as blog posts and curated collections) — is owned by Chénjìn and protected by intellectual property laws. Except for the limited rights expressly granted in these Terms, we reserve all rights in the Service.

9. Termination

You may stop using the Service and delete your account at any time. We may suspend or terminate your access to the Service at any time, for any reason, including a violation of these Terms. Sections of these Terms that by their nature should survive termination (including Sections 4, 6, 8, 10, and 11) will survive.

10. Disclaimers

THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE," WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, WHETHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, OR THAT THE SERVICE WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED, ERROR-FREE, OR SECURE. YOUR USE OF THE SERVICE IS AT YOUR OWN RISK.

11. Limitation of Liability

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, CHÉNJÌN AND ITS OPERATORS WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR ANY LOSS OF DATA, REVENUE, OR PROFITS, ARISING FROM YOUR USE OF THE SERVICE. OUR TOTAL LIABILITY FOR ANY CLAIM RELATING TO THE SERVICE WILL NOT EXCEED THE AMOUNT YOU PAID US IN THE 12 MONTHS BEFORE THE CLAIM AROSE, OR $100 IF YOU HAVE NOT PAID US ANYTHING.

12. Indemnification

You agree to indemnify and hold Chénjìn harmless from any claims, damages, or expenses (including reasonable legal fees) arising from your User Content, your violation of these Terms, or your violation of any law or third-party right.

13. Changes to the Service or These Terms

We may modify or discontinue features of the Service at any time. We may also update these Terms from time to time; if we make material changes, we will provide notice (such as an email or in-app notice) before they take effect. Continuing to use the Service after changes take effect means you accept the updated Terms.

14. Governing Law

These Terms are governed by the laws of the United States, without regard to conflict-of-laws principles, except where local consumer-protection law mandates otherwise for users residing outside the United States.

15. Miscellaneous

If any provision of these Terms is found unenforceable, the remaining provisions will continue in full force. These Terms, together with our Privacy Policy, constitute the entire agreement between you and Chénjìn regarding the Service. Our failure to enforce any right or provision is not a waiver of that right.

16. Contact Us

Questions about these Terms? Contact us at admin@chenjinmandarin.com or via our Contact page.