This project is open source. Take it, build on it, sell what you make with it — just say where it came from.
1 · The software
MIT License
The HTML, CSS, JavaScript and build scripts — the reader, the game, the flashcards, the tokenizer and vocabulary build steps.
Do whatever you like: use it, change it, ship it commercially. The only condition is that you keep the copyright notice and permission notice in copies of the software.
Read the full MIT text
MIT License Copyright (c) 2026 @pourteaux 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.
2 · The writing and the word list
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0)
Both stories and their English translations, the 1,000-word list with its pinyin and definitions, and the artwork.
MIT is written for code, so the creative work uses the licence built for creative work. You may:
- Share — copy and redistribute it in any medium or format
- Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon it, for any purpose, including commercially
…provided you give appropriate credit, link to the licence, and say if you changed anything. Full text at creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0.
Vocabulary and stories from 一字一世界 by @pourteaux (chinesereader.net), licensed under CC BY 4.0.
3 · One clarification
The HSK levels themselves
HSK is a published standard from Hanban / the Chinese Ministry of Education, and this project makes no claim over it. What is licensed here is the selection of the roughly 500 words outside the HSK lists, and every pinyin and English gloss written for this project.