Terms of Use | Ling Snake

Last updated: August 12, 2026

1. Acceptance of Terms

By downloading, installing, accessing, or using the Ling Snake mobile or web application (the “App”), you (“you”, the “user”) agree to be bound by these Terms of Use (the “Terms”). If you do not agree, do not use the App.

These Terms form a binding agreement between you and Naptime Tomato Studio LLC (“we”, “us”, “our”, the “Company”), a Washington limited liability company, located at 522 W Riverside Ave Ste N, Spokane, WA 99201-0581, United States.

2. Eligibility

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

The App is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. See our Privacy Policy for details.

3. Description of Service

Ling Snake is an educational application that helps users learn Mandarin Chinese vocabulary, characters, and language patterns through interactive games, flashcards (“decks”), and themed playgrounds. The App is available on iOS, Android, and the web.

Certain features (“Pro features”) require an active paid subscription, while others are available without payment.

4. Accounts and Sign-In

Using the App requires an account. You can create an account only by signing in with Apple or Google. When you create an account, you agree to:

Provide accurate, current, and complete information;
Maintain the security of your Apple or Google account and any device you use to access the App, and accept all risks of unauthorized access to your Ling Snake account;
Promptly notify us if you discover or suspect any security breach involving your account;
Take responsibility for all activities that occur under your account.

We reserve the right to suspend or terminate accounts that violate these Terms, at our sole discretion.

5. Subscriptions and In-App Purchases

5.1 Subscription Plans

The App offers optional auto-renewing Pro subscription plans, available as a monthly or annual subscription. Free trial offers may be available at our discretion for new subscribers. Current pricing is shown in the App at the point of purchase, and an active subscription unlocks all Pro features for the duration of the subscription period.

5.2 Billing and Auto-Renewal — Apple App Store (iOS)

If you purchase a subscription through the Apple App Store:

Payment will be charged to your Apple ID account at confirmation of purchase;
Your subscription automatically renews at the same price unless auto-renew is turned off at least 24 hours before the end of the current period;
Your Apple ID account will be charged for renewal within 24 hours prior to the end of the current period at the cost of the chosen package;
You can manage your subscription and turn off auto-renewal by going to your Apple ID Account Settings → Subscriptions after purchase;
Where a free trial is offered, it automatically converts to a paid subscription at the end of the trial unless cancelled at least 24 hours before the trial ends. Any unused portion of a free trial is forfeited when you purchase a subscription, where applicable.

5.3 Billing and Auto-Renewal — Google Play (Android)

If you purchase a subscription through Google Play:

Payment will be charged to your Google Play account at confirmation of purchase;
Your subscription automatically renews at the same price unless cancelled at least 24 hours before the end of the current period;
You can manage your subscription and turn off auto-renewal at Google Play → Subscriptions after purchase.

5.4 Billing — Web (where offered)

Where subscriptions are offered directly on the web, payment is processed by our payment provider (Stripe) rather than Apple or Google. Web subscriptions auto-renew on the same monthly or annual basis at the same price unless cancelled, and can be cancelled at any time from your account settings; cancellation takes effect at the end of the current billing period. For web purchases, we handle refunds directly in accordance with Section 5.5 and applicable law, including any statutory right of withdrawal that applies to you (for example, the EU/UK 14-day right to cancel, which you may waive by asking us to begin providing the subscription immediately).

5.5 Refunds

Purchases made through the Apple App Store or Google Play are governed by the refund policies of those platforms. To request a refund:

Apple App Store: reportaproblem.apple.com
Google Play: play.google.com/store/account

We do not directly process refunds for App Store or Google Play purchases. For web purchases, contact us at contact@lingsnake.com.

5.6 Price Changes

We may change subscription prices from time to time. Any price change will take effect at the next renewal period following the change. You will be notified of price changes in advance as required by the App Store, Google Play, or applicable law.

5.7 Restoring Purchases

If you have purchased a subscription on one device and would like to access it on another device signed in to the same Apple ID or Google account, use the “Restore Purchases” option in the App.

6. License to Use the App

Subject to your compliance with these Terms, we grant you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable license to download, install, and use the App on devices you own or control, for your personal, non-commercial use. These Terms, together with this license, constitute the end-user license agreement (EULA) for the App.

You may not:

Copy, modify, distribute, sell, lease, or sublicense any part of the App;
Reverse engineer, decompile, or attempt to extract the source code of the App, except where this restriction is prohibited by applicable law;
Use the App for any unlawful purpose or in violation of any local, state, national, or international law;
Interfere with or disrupt the App, its servers, or its networks;
Attempt to gain unauthorized access to any part of the App, its servers, or related systems;
Use any automated means (bots, scrapers) to access the App.

7. Intellectual Property

The App, including all content, features, design, code, graphics, audio, and trademarks, is the property of the Company or its licensors and is protected by copyright, trademark, and other intellectual property laws. Mandarin vocabulary lists, character data, and pinyin transliterations are derived in part from publicly-available linguistic sources, including the HSK 3.0 standard published by China’s Ministry of Education / Hanban.

User-generated content (saved decks, custom settings, study progress) remains your property, but you grant us a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive license to store, sync, display, and process that content solely for the purpose of operating the App on your behalf.

8. Third-Party Services

The App integrates with third-party services, including:

RevenueCat — subscription management and entitlement validation;
Apple App Store / Google Play — payment processing;
Stripe — payment processing for web subscriptions, where offered;
Google Cloud Platform (Cloud SQL, United States) — server-side data storage;
Sign in with Apple (Apple Inc.) and Google Sign-In (Google LLC) — federated account authentication. Account records themselves are stored on our own backend (Google Cloud), not by these providers.

Synthetic voice disclosure: Some pronunciation audio in the App uses AI-generated synthetic voices produced with text-to-speech services, including Microsoft Azure AI Speech and Google Cloud Text-to-Speech. Synthetic pronunciation audio should not be understood as a recording of a human speaker.

Your use of these services is also governed by their respective terms and privacy policies. We are not responsible for the practices of third-party services.

8.1 Open-Source Software and Linguistic Data Notices

The App includes or uses open-source software and linguistic data. Those materials remain subject to their respective licenses. The following notices are provided to satisfy applicable attribution and redistribution requirements; no contributor or project named below endorses the App or the Company.

Complete HSK Vocabulary

react-native-wheel-picker-expo

ts-fsrs

MIT License text

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the “Software”), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED “AS IS”, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

CC-CEDICT

Some Chinese-English definitions are derived from CC-CEDICT, which is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License. The App selects, cleans, and reformats entries for its educational presentation. Those adapted definitions are made available under the same license. The license permits commercial use subject to attribution and share-alike requirements.

Make Me a Hanzi — dictionary.txt only

The App uses a selected and reformatted subset of Make Me a Hanzi's dictionary.txt. That dataset is licensed under the GNU Lesser General Public License, version 3 or later. The App does not use Make Me a Hanzi's graphics.txt or SVG assets. The upstream source and its licensing notices are available in the Make Me a Hanzi repository. To request a copy of the exact modified dictionary subset distributed with the App, contact contact@lingsnake.com.

9. Disclaimers

THE APP IS PROVIDED “AS IS” AND “AS AVAILABLE” WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, OR NON-INFRINGEMENT.

We do not warrant that the App will be uninterrupted, error-free, or free of viruses or other harmful components. Educational content is provided in good faith but we make no guarantee as to its accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any particular learning outcome (including, without limitation, performance on any specific HSK or other proficiency examination).

10. Limitation of Liability

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, IN NO EVENT WILL THE COMPANY BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR ANY LOSS OF PROFITS OR REVENUES, ARISING OUT OF OR RELATED TO YOUR USE OF THE APP.

OUR TOTAL AGGREGATE LIABILITY FOR ANY CLAIM ARISING OUT OF THESE TERMS WILL NOT EXCEED THE GREATER OF (A) THE AMOUNT YOU PAID FOR SUBSCRIPTIONS IN THE 12 MONTHS PRECEDING THE CLAIM, OR (B) USD $50.

Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion or limitation of certain damages. To the extent any provision of this section is held to be invalid in your jurisdiction, the remaining limitations remain in full effect.

11. Indemnification

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless the Company from any claim, loss, liability, or expense (including reasonable attorneys’ fees) arising out of your breach of these Terms or your misuse of the App.

12. Termination

You may terminate your account at any time using the “Delete account” option in the App, or by contacting us at contact@lingsnake.com. We may terminate or suspend your access at any time, with or without cause, with or without notice. Upon termination, your right to use the App ceases immediately; sections that by their nature should survive termination (including IP, Disclaimers, Limitation of Liability, Indemnification, and Governing Law) will continue to apply.

13. Apple-Specific Terms (iOS only)

You and we acknowledge that these Terms are between you and the Company only, not with Apple Inc., and that Apple is not responsible for the App or its content. To the extent these Terms provide for usage rules for the App that are less restrictive than the Apple Media Services Terms of Service, the more restrictive terms of the Apple Media Services Terms of Service will take precedence. Apple is a third-party beneficiary of these Terms and may enforce them against you.

In the event of failure of the App to conform to any applicable warranty, you may notify Apple, and Apple will refund any applicable purchase price; to the maximum extent permitted by law, Apple will have no other warranty obligation whatsoever with respect to the App.

14. Changes to These Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. When we do, we will update the “Last updated” date at the top. Material changes will be notified through the App or via email to the address associated with your account, at least 30 days before they take effect. Your continued use of the App after changes take effect constitutes acceptance of the updated Terms.

15. Governing Law and Dispute Resolution

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Washington, USA, without regard to its conflict-of-law principles. Any dispute arising out of these Terms will be resolved in the state and federal courts located in the State of Washington, USA, except where prohibited by applicable consumer-protection law.

For users located in the European Union, United Kingdom, or other jurisdictions where mandatory local consumer-protection laws apply, those laws prevail over this section to the extent they grant you greater rights.

16. Severability

If any provision of these Terms is held to be invalid or unenforceable, the remaining provisions will continue in full force and effect.

17. Contact

For questions about these Terms, contact us at contact@lingsnake.com.