Terms of Service

Welcome to KanaMastery! These Terms of Service ("Terms") govern your use of the KanaMastery website at kanamastery.com, our services and applications (together, the "Service").

Who we are: the Service is provided by Jaime Lourenço Jacob, trading as KanaMastery, a sole trader (empresário em nome individual) in Portugal, at Rua Padre António Vieira 38, 6DTR, 4710-412 São Victor, Braga, Portugal. NIF / VAT number: PT242549250. "We" and "us" in these Terms mean that trader. All the details, and how to reach us, are in our Legal notice.

Contact: for questions, support and refunds, use the contact page (or email support@kanamastery.com). For legal notices, write to hi@jlj.pt.

By creating an account or using the Service, you agree to these Terms. They are a binding agreement between you and us. If you don't agree, please don't use the Service. If you are a consumer, nothing in these Terms takes away rights the law gives you that can't be waived by contract.

Effective Date: December 5, 2024 (first version)

Last Updated: October 3, 2026

To access certain features of the Service, you must create an account. You can register using:

• Email and Password: Create an account with your email address and a secure password. You must verify your email address before accessing all features.
• Google Sign-In: Authenticate using your existing Google account for faster access.

Account Security: Please keep your sign-in details safe and don't share them. We offer Two-Factor Authentication (2FA), which we strongly recommend. Tell us straight away if you think someone else has used your account. We aren't responsible for losses caused by someone using your sign-in details because they weren't kept safe, unless the loss was our fault.

Age: You must be at least 16 years old to create an account. By creating an account, you confirm that you are. If you are 16 or 17, you need the agreement of a parent or guardian to buy a plan, and by buying one you confirm that you have it.

You may not use the Service for any illegal or unauthorized purpose, or in breach of the laws that apply to you.

We may suspend or close an account, or remove content, if there is a valid reason: a breach of these Terms (see Acceptable Use), suspected fraud, abuse, or a legal requirement. How we do it, and your right to contest it, are in section 9.

KanaMastery offers different membership tiers to suit your learning needs. Prices include VAT where it applies (see Payments and prices).

Subscription Management: Subscriptions (monthly and annual) renew automatically unless cancelled before the renewal date. You can cancel at any time in Settings › Membership (which opens the Stripe customer portal). When you cancel, you keep access until the end of the period you paid for, and nothing more is charged.

Switching plans: If you switch plan (for example from monthly to annual, or from any plan to lifetime), your old plan ends at once and we automatically refund the part of it you paid for and won't use, pro rata. Each purchase (a new plan, a switch, or buying again after a plan ended) is its own contract, with its own refund period (see section 5).

Discount codes: a code works as its offer says (for example, 10% off the first payment only), and you enter it at checkout. Discounts don't combine: with the student discount, a code can't be used. On a plan that starts with free trial days, the code comes off the first payment after the trial.

KanaMastery allows users to create custom quizzes ("My Quizzes") for personal learning and optional sharing with others.

What isn't allowed: When creating quizzes, you agree that your content:

• Is not illegal, and does not infringe anyone's rights, including copyright and other intellectual property
• Does not contain hateful, discriminatory, harassing, sexual, violent or otherwise offensive material
• Does not contain spam, advertising, links, malware, or misleading information
• Does not share anyone's personal information

Quiz Limits: Free users may create up to 3 quizzes, each with up to 30 questions and up to 1,000 players, and 2 tags. KanaMember subscribers may create up to 200 quizzes, each with up to 1,000 questions and 1,000 players, and 50 tags.

Public vs Private: You control whether your quizzes are public (shareable via link) or private (only accessible to you). Public quizzes may be played by other users. Anyone can play a quiz that uses KanaMember content (such as the JLPT lists, kanji or phrases); for players who aren't KanaMembers, those questions are practice and don't count toward XP or reviews. Making a quiz public requires a verified email address.

The Community Library: You may list a public quiz in the community library if every question comes from KanaMastery's own lists (the quiz catalog); the name and description are yours, and must follow the rules above.

Reporting: Signed-in users can report any public quiz with "Report this quiz". Anyone, signed in or not, can tell us about content they think is illegal by writing to hi@jlj.pt with the link, why it is illegal, their name and email, and a statement that they believe it in good faith. We confirm receipt and tell the person who reported it what we decided.

How we moderate: A person on our team reviews every report and makes every decision. Two steps are automatic: a name or description with links or advertising can't be listed in the library, and a quiz with three open reports leaves the library until we have reviewed it (it still plays by its link). After review, we may keep the quiz, take it out of the library, close its link, or delete it; for serious or repeated breaches, we may suspend the account (see section 9).

We tell you why, and you can contest it: If we restrict your quiz or your account, we tell you at the latest when we do it: what we did, the reason (the rule or the law concerned, and the facts), whether it was automatic (for example, a quiz taken out of the library after three reports until we review it), and how to contest it. To contest a decision, reply to that notice or write to support@kanamastery.com: a person who wasn't involved in it, where possible, looks again and we reverse it if we got it wrong. You can also use a certified out-of-court dispute settlement body (Digital Services Act, art. 21) or the courts.

Point of contact: our single point of contact for users and authorities under the Digital Services Act is hi@jlj.pt, in English or Portuguese.

A full refund, for 30 days. You can get a full refund on any plan (monthly, yearly or lifetime) until 30 days after its first payment, and never less than 14 days after you buy it, for any reason, even if you used it. Bought during your free trial? You can ask before the first charge too (nothing is charged). This applies to everyone, wherever you live. How it works and how to ask, in plain words: the refund policy.

• "First payment" means the first payment for a plan: for a monthly or yearly plan, its first charge (not its renewals); for lifetime, its purchase.
• Each purchase (a new plan, a switch, or buying again after a plan ended) has its own period, from the moment you buy.

Your legal right: if you are a consumer in the European Union, the law lets you cancel a contract made online within 14 days, without giving a reason (the right of withdrawal in the Consumer Rights Directive 2011/83/EU and, in Portugal, Decree-Law 24/2014). Consumers in the United Kingdom have the same right (the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013). Our 30-day refund includes that right and goes further. Because we refund in full even after you have started using the plan, we don't ask you at checkout to give up this right.

How to ask for a refund:

• Signed in: Settings › Membership › Request a refund.
• Online, without signing in: the form on the refund policy page (Request a refund).
• Or by email to support@kanamastery.com or hi@jlj.pt, through the contact page ("A refund"), or by post to Rua Padre António Vieira 38, 6DTR, 4710-412 São Victor, Braga, Portugal, with any clear statement that you want a refund. You can use the model form at the end of these Terms, but you don't have to.
• We confirm every request by email straight away. It is enough to send it before your period ends.

What happens next: we end the plan and refund everything you paid for that plan, without deducting anything for the time you used it, within 14 days of receiving your request, to the payment method you used (unless you agree otherwise), at no cost to you. Your bank may take 5 to 10 more days to show it. Your account, progress and quizzes stay, on the free plan.

Cancelling instead: you can cancel a subscription at any time in Settings › Membership. Cancelling stops the next renewal; it isn't a refund. When you cancel:

• You keep access until the end of the period you paid for
• No further charges are made
• Your learning progress and custom quizzes stay

After the 30 days, a refund request is treated as a cancellation. Payments for a period already started aren't refunded, except where these Terms or the law say otherwise (for example, if the Service doesn't work as it should, see section 15, or if we change these Terms, the Service or your plan to your disadvantage, see section 17).

If someone repeatedly buys a plan and asks for a refund to use it for free, we may decline their future purchases. This never affects a refund already requested.

Prices and VAT: Prices are in euros (€). The price shown is what you pay: VAT is included where it applies. Your bank may add a currency conversion fee if your account is in another currency.

How a purchase works: you choose a plan in Settings › Membership or on the pricing page, and review it on Stripe's payment page (the plan, the price and how often it is charged). You can correct your details, or go back, at any time before you pay. When you pay, the contract is made, and we send a confirmation email with the main points of these Terms, including how to get a refund. The contract is in English and in Portuguese (the Portuguese version; if they differ, the one more favourable to the consumer applies). The version of these Terms you accepted is recorded with your account, and the latest version is always on this page.

Payment processing: Payments are handled by Stripe: Stripe Payments Europe, Limited (Ireland) for our account, with Stripe, Inc. (United States). When you buy a plan, your card details go straight to Stripe and never reach our servers.

Information Shared with Stripe: To process your payments, we share the following information with Stripe:

• Your email address
• Your name (if provided)
• Purchase details (product, amount, currency)

This information is used only for payment processing, fraud prevention, and support for payment questions. Stripe processes your payment details under Stripe's Privacy Policy.

Price changes: We may change our prices. A new price never applies to a period you have already paid for: for a running subscription, it applies from your next renewal, and we tell you by email at least 30 days before. If you don't want to continue at the new price, cancel before the renewal and nothing more is charged. A lifetime purchase is never charged again.

For payment questions or disputes, please use the contact page.

You can delete your account at any time in Settings › Privacy.

Before Deletion: If you have an active subscription, cancel it first (Settings › Membership).

What Gets Deleted: When you delete your account:

• Your personal information (name, email, profile photo) is permanently removed
• Your learning progress and game history is deleted
• Your leaderboard entries are removed
• Your custom quizzes are permanently deleted
• Your sign-in account is removed

What we keep: Invoices and billing records (what was bought, when, the amount, the VAT and the invoice) are kept for 10 years, as Portuguese tax and commercial law requires. Everything else is kept to what the Service needs and is deleted with your account. Details are in the Privacy Policy.

Confirmation: You will receive an email confirmation when your account has been deleted.

KanaMastery features leaderboards that display user rankings based on XP earned and learning achievements.

Public Profile Setting: By default, your profile is private. You may make your profile public in Settings, which shows your username and scores on the public leaderboard.

Displayed Information: If you opt into public leaderboard participation, the following information may be visible to other users:

• Your display name (username)
• Your profile picture (if set)
• Your XP and level
• Your KanaMember status (the optional KanaMember badge)

Privacy Recommendation: We recommend using a pseudonym rather than your real name if you wish to maintain greater privacy while participating in leaderboards.

We may remove or reset leaderboard results, or hide a name or picture, for a valid reason: cheating, an inappropriate name or picture, or a technical fault. We tell you why, and you can contest it as described in section 4.

You agree not to use the Service to:

• Violate any applicable laws, regulations, or third-party rights
• Attempt to gain unauthorized access to the Service, other accounts, or computer systems
• Use automated scripts, bots, or other means to artificially inflate scores or manipulate leaderboards
• Share your account credentials with others or allow multiple people to use a single account
• Circumvent or attempt to circumvent any access restrictions or subscription requirements
• Upload or share malicious code, viruses, or harmful content
• Harass, abuse, or harm other users
• Create multiple accounts to abuse free tier benefits or evade account restrictions
• Scrape, copy, or redistribute our content without explicit permission
• Use the Service for any commercial purpose without our written consent

If you break these rules: what we do depends on how serious it is. We may warn you, remove content, reset results, or suspend or close your account. Except where we must act at once (for example, to stop fraud, an attack or illegal content, or where the law requires it), we warn you first and give you a chance to explain.

A person decides, and we tell you why: every suspension or closure is decided by a person on our team, never by a machine alone. When we suspend or close an account, we email a statement of reasons: what we did, the rule or the law concerned and the facts, and how to contest it (see section 4). We lift a restriction that turns out to be a mistake. The one exception: accounts we treat as spam or bots (fake or automated sign-ups, or accounts posting deceptive commercial content in volume) may be suspended without notice. A suspended spam account is deleted 30 days later if nobody contests it; write to support@kanamastery.com if yours was suspended by mistake.

Refunds when we close an account: if we close a paid account, we refund the part of your plan you paid for and won't get. For a lifetime plan, we refund the unused share of its first 5 years: the price × the months left of the 60 ÷ 60. After 5 years from the purchase, nothing is refunded. If we close it because of a serious breach of these Terms (such as fraud, cheating others or illegal content), we refund that same unused part minus any damage the breach is shown to have actually caused us.

Ending it yourself: you can stop using the Service, cancel a plan or delete your account at any time.

If we close the Service: we tell you at least 30 days before, and refund the part of any subscription you paid for and won't get. For a lifetime plan, we refund the unused share of its first 5 years: the price × the months left of the 60 ÷ 60. After 5 years from the purchase, nothing is refunded.

KanaMastery may contain links to third-party websites, products, or services that are affiliates of KanaMastery ("Affiliate Links"). If you purchase a product or service through an Affiliate Link, we may receive a commission at no additional cost to you.

We only recommend products or services that we believe may be of value to our users learning Japanese.

We disclose Affiliate Links as the law requires. An Affiliate Link is not a guarantee of the third party's product or service.

Third-party websites have their own privacy policies and terms, and we don't control their content.

We collect data necessary to provide and improve our Service. For complete details on how we collect, use, and protect your information, please read our Privacy Policy.

Summary of Data Collected:

• Account information (email, name, profile picture)
• Authentication data (including 2FA settings if enabled)
• Learning progress, game history, and achievements
• Usage data and analytics to improve the Service
• Device and browser information
• Leaderboard data (username and scores, if public profile enabled)
• Marketing preferences

We do not sell your personal data to third parties. Your data is stored securely and used only for purposes related to providing and improving the Service.

We use cookies and similar storage that the Service needs to work: to keep you signed in, to protect forms (CSRF protection), and to remember your settings.

With your consent only, we also use Google Analytics (how the Service is used). You choose in the cookie banner and can change your choice at any time with "Cookie settings" at the bottom of every page. Details are in our Privacy Policy.

During account registration, you may opt in to receive marketing communications from us. If you subscribe, we may use your email address to send you information about our Service, learning tips, updates, and promotions.

Service Emails: Regardless of your marketing preferences, we send you the emails the Service needs, including:

• Email verification and password reset
• Payment confirmations and receipts
• Subscription status changes, and a reminder before your free trial ends
• Security notifications (password changes, 2FA changes)
• Account deletion confirmation
• Notice of changes to these Terms, the Service or prices (section 17)

You can opt out of marketing communications at any time by following the unsubscribe link in any marketing email or by updating your preferences in Settings.

We will not share your email address with third parties for their marketing purposes without your explicit consent.

Our Content: The content of the Service, including text, graphics, logos, images, audio, quizzes and software, belongs to us or to the people who license it to us, and is protected by copyright. Some of our Japanese language data comes from openly licensed sources, credited on our Attributions page, and their licences apply to it.

Your License: We give you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable licence to use the Service for your own non-commercial learning, for as long as you have an account. It ends if your account is closed as section 9 describes.

Your Content: You retain ownership of any content you create (such as custom quizzes). By making a quiz public, you allow us to display it and make it available to other users, free of charge, for as long as it is public.

Feedback: Any feedback, comments, or suggestions you provide regarding the Service is entirely voluntary, and we may use it to improve the Service without any obligation to you.

The legal guarantee of conformity: The Service must be as described, fit for its purpose, and work as you can reasonably expect, for as long as you have it. This is your legal right as a consumer (in the EU, Directive (EU) 2019/770; in Portugal, Decree-Law 84/2021). If it doesn't, tell us: we will fix it within a reasonable time at no cost. If we can't or don't, you can ask for a proportionate price reduction or, if the problem isn't minor, end the contract and get back what you paid for the time it didn't work. Nothing in these Terms limits these rights.

Educational Content: We work hard on the accuracy of our Japanese content, and you can report any mistake with "Report a problem". KanaMastery is a practice tool, and works best alongside other resources and real conversations; we don't promise any particular result, such as passing an exam.

Availability: We aim to keep the Service running at all times, but it may sometimes be unavailable, for example for maintenance or because of problems with our providers or the internet. This doesn't affect your rights above.

Liability: We are responsible for loss or damage you suffer that is a foreseeable result of our breaking these Terms or of our negligence. We are not responsible for loss that wasn't foreseeable, or for business losses (the Service is for personal use). We never exclude or limit our liability for death or personal injury, for fraud, for intent or gross negligence, or where the law doesn't allow it, and nothing here affects your statutory rights.

These Terms are governed by Portuguese law. If you are a consumer, you also keep the protection of the mandatory rules of the law of the country where you live, where that law gives it to you.

Courts: If you are a consumer, you can bring a claim in the courts of Portugal or in the courts of the country where you live, and we can bring a claim against you only in the courts of the country where you live (in the EU this is Regulation (EU) 1215/2012; elsewhere, where your law gives you the same right).

Talk to us first: most problems are solved quickly. Use the contact page or write to hi@jlj.pt.

Consumer dispute resolution: If we can't agree, you can take the dispute to a consumer arbitration centre. For Braga and the surrounding area: CIAB – Centro de Informação, Mediação e Arbitragem de Consumo (Tribunal Arbitral de Consumo), Rua D. Afonso Henriques, 1, 4700-030 Braga, Portugal (www.ciab.pt). Elsewhere in Portugal: CNIACC – Centro Nacional de Informação e Arbitragem de Conflitos de Consumo (www.cniacc.pt). For disputes up to €5,000, Portuguese law lets you choose arbitration or mediation there, and we take part.

Consumers in other EU countries (and Iceland and Norway) can get free help from the European Consumer Centre in their country: European Consumer Centres Network (ECC-Net).

Complaints book: you can also make a complaint in Portugal's electronic complaints book (Livro de Reclamações), at www.livroreclamacoes.pt.

Changes to these Terms: We may update these Terms for a valid reason: a change in the law, in the Service, in how we run it, or to make them clearer. If a change is significant (for example, to your rights, your plan or your data), we tell you by email and with a notice in the Service at least 30 days before it applies. If you don't agree, you can cancel your plan, free of charge, before the change applies, and we refund the part of your plan you paid for and won't get. For a lifetime plan, we refund the unused share of its first 5 years: the price × the months left of the 60 ÷ 60. After 5 years from the purchase, nothing is refunded. Changes the law requires, or that are needed for security, may apply sooner; we tell you as soon as we can.

Changes to the Service: We keep improving KanaMastery and may change, add or remove features, for reasons such as improving it, security, the law, or the cost of a provider. A change never costs you extra. If a change makes your paid plan clearly worse, we tell you in advance by email; you can then end your plan free of charge within 30 days of the notice or of the change (whichever is later) and get back the part you paid for and won't get (for a lifetime plan, by the same rule as above).

Prices: see Payments and prices: a new price applies only from your next renewal, with at least 30 days' notice.

The date at the top shows the latest version. When you accept these Terms, we record which version you accepted.

If you have any questions about these Terms, please use the contact page or write to hi@jlj.pt.

EU law asks us to show this form. You don't need it: requesting a refund does the same.