This document is provided for general informational purposes and is not legal advice. Consider having it reviewed by a qualified attorney for your jurisdiction.
1. Who can use the Service
You must be at least 16 years old (or the minimum age of digital consent in your country, if higher) to use the Service. By using it, you represent that you meet this requirement and that you have the legal capacity to enter into these Terms. The Service is intended for personal, non-commercial use unless we expressly agree otherwise.
2. Your account
You can sign in with email and password or with Sign in with Apple, or browse as a guest with limited features. You are responsible for the accuracy of your account information, for all activity that occurs under your account, and for keeping your credentials secure. Notify us promptly at info@nzonza.org if you suspect unauthorized use of your account.
3. The Service
Nzonza Connect helps you learn African and other indigenous languages: work through lessons, practise pronunciation by recording yourself, track your progress, and share what you are learning with other learners. Features may change, be added, or be removed over time. We may also set reasonable limits on use of the Service.
Language learning materials are provided for education. We work with native speakers and linguists, but languages vary by region, dialect and community, and we do not warrant that any particular translation, spelling or pronunciation is correct for your context.
4. User content
“User Content” means anything you post, upload, record, or share through the Service — including your profile, photos, posts, comments, messages, and voice recordings.
- You own your content. You retain all rights you have in your User Content.
- License to us. You grant Nzonza Foundation a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to host, store, reproduce, display, and distribute your User Content solely to operate, provide, and improve the Service. This license ends when you delete the content or your account, except for content others have shared, copies retained for legal or backup purposes, and recordings you have separately contributed to the open dataset under section 5.
- Your responsibility. You are solely responsible for your User Content and represent that you have the rights to share it and that it does not violate these Terms or any law or third-party right.
5. Voice recordings and the open dataset
Nzonza Foundation also runs the Center of Indigenous & African Language Research (CIALR), which publishes an open dataset of African language data. These are deliberately kept separate:
- Practice recordings are not contributions. Audio you record to practise pronunciation is used to run the Service and give you feedback. It is not published and is not added to the open dataset.
- Contributing is a separate, explicit act. If you choose to contribute a recording to the dataset, we will tell you at that point how it will be licensed, how you will be credited, and that the dataset is published openly. You grant the licence for that recording only when you make that choice.
- Published contributions cannot be fully recalled. You can ask us to remove a contributed recording, and we will. Because the dataset is open, copies already distributed to others are outside our control, and we will say so before you contribute.
See our Privacy Policy for how recordings are stored and deleted.
6. Acceptable use and community standards
To keep the community safe, you agree not to:
- harass, bully, threaten, impersonate, or incite violence against anyone;
- post hateful, discriminatory, sexually explicit, or otherwise unlawful or harmful content;
- spam, scam, phish, or engage in fraudulent or deceptive behavior;
- post content that infringes others' intellectual property or privacy;
- upload recordings of another person without their knowledge and agreement;
- collect or misuse other learners' information, or contact learners who have blocked you;
- attempt to disrupt, reverse engineer, scrape, or gain unauthorized access to the Service.
We provide tools to block, mute, and report learners and content. We may review reports and, at our discretion, remove content or suspend or terminate accounts that violate these Terms.
7. Community and messaging
Posting, commenting and messaging are provided to help learners support each other. You are responsible for your communications. Do not use them for unsolicited advertising, harassment, or unlawful purposes.
8. Third-party services
The Service relies on third-party providers, including Apple (Sign in with Apple, App Store) and Google Firebase (authentication, data storage and file storage). Your use of those features may also be subject to the third parties' terms and privacy policies. We are not responsible for third-party services.
9. Intellectual property
The Service, including its software, design, logos, and branding (excluding User Content), is owned by Nzonza Foundation and protected by intellectual-property laws. We grant you a limited, personal, non-transferable, revocable license to use the app as permitted by these Terms. You may not copy, modify, distribute, sell, or create derivative works from the Service except as allowed by law.
The open dataset published by CIALR is licensed separately and openly; these Terms do not restrict your use of it.
10. Privacy
Your use of the Service is also governed by our Privacy Policy, which explains what we collect and how we use it. By using the Service, you consent to those practices.
11. Suspension and termination
You may stop using the Service and delete your account at any time. We may suspend or terminate your access, with or without notice, if you violate these Terms, create risk or legal exposure, or if we discontinue the Service. Sections that by their nature should survive termination (e.g., content license for residual copies, dataset contributions, disclaimers, limitation of liability, indemnification, governing law) will survive.
12. Disclaimers
The Service is provided “as is” and “as available,” without warranties of any kind, whether express, implied, or statutory, including warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement. We do not warrant that the Service will be uninterrupted, secure, or error-free, or that any lesson, translation, or learner is accurate, trustworthy, or safe.
13. Limitation of liability
To the maximum extent permitted by law, Nzonza Foundation and its officers, employees, and agents will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, or any loss of data, goodwill, or profits, arising from or related to your use of the Service or interactions with other learners. Our total liability for any claim relating to the Service will not exceed the greater of (a) the amount you paid us in the 12 months before the claim, or (b) USD $50. Some jurisdictions do not allow certain limitations, so some of the above may not apply to you.
14. Indemnification
You agree to indemnify and hold harmless Nzonza Foundation from any claims, damages, losses, and expenses (including reasonable legal fees) arising from your User Content, your use of the Service, your interactions with other learners, or your violation of these Terms or any law or third-party right.
15. Changes to these Terms
We may update these Terms from time to time. If we make material changes, we will provide reasonable notice (for example, in the app or by updating the “Last updated” date). Your continued use of the Service after changes take effect means you accept the revised Terms.
16. Governing law and disputes
These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Delaware, United States, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules. You agree that any dispute will be resolved exclusively in the state or federal courts located in New Castle County, Delaware, and you consent to their jurisdiction.
17. Contact
Questions about these Terms? Contact us at info@nzonza.org.