Legal

Terms of Use

Last updated: September 1, 2026 — operated by Sergey Litau, contact [email protected]

These Terms of Use ("Terms") govern your use of the Lilu iOS app and lilu.litau.app (together, "Lilu" or "the Service"), operated by Sergey Litau ("we," "us," "our"). By downloading, installing, or using Lilu, you agree to these Terms. If you don't agree, please don't use the app.

1. What Lilu is

Lilu is a feed of short, real-world Mandarin Chinese video clips with a word-by-word synchronized transcript, tap-to-translate word lookups, an automatically built personal vocabulary list, and spaced repetition review — built to help you understand spoken Chinese the way people actually speak it.

2. Early-access purchase

This website sells exactly one thing: a one-time payment of $19 for lifetime access to the Lilu app once it ships, instead of the $79.99 it will cost after launch. There is no subscription, no auto-renewal, no free trial, and no recurring charge of any kind — you pay once, a single time, and that is the entire transaction.

The app itself does not exist yet — it ships this autumn, iPhone first. Buying now is an early-access pre-order: your payment is processed directly by PayPal on this website, not through Apple's App Store or any In-App Purchase system (the app has not been submitted to the App Store yet, so that system isn't available to use). We never see or store your card details — PayPal handles the transaction end to end. Once the app ships, we email the install link to the address PayPal gives us for the payment, and your $19 purchase is honored as lifetime access inside the app, with nothing further to pay.

Only the first 100 buyers get this price. Once those seats are gone, the offer closes to new purchases; anyone who already bought keeps their lifetime access regardless.

Refunds

If Lilu isn't what you hoped for, write to [email protected] and we will refund you — no form, no waiting window, no questions asked. Because this is a direct PayPal payment rather than an App Store purchase, the refund comes from us, not from Apple, and we can usually process it within a few days. See the full Refund Policy.

3. Subscriptions inside the app, after launch

The $19 early-access payment described in §2 is the only thing sold on this website today. The table below describes how Lilu plans to price access inside the app itself, once it has shipped and is listed on the App Store — it does not describe anything you can buy right now, and it does not apply to anyone who already bought early access: your $19 purchase is honored as lifetime access regardless of what launches below.

Free trial (Yearly only)

Only the Yearly plan will include a 7-day free trial. Monthly and Founding Lifetime will never include a trial. If you start the Yearly plan's free trial and do not cancel at least 24 hours before it ends, your Apple ID will automatically be charged $49.99 and your subscription begins, renewing every year at the same price until you cancel.

Auto-renewal and billing

Monthly and Yearly subscriptions will renew automatically at the price shown at purchase, unless auto-renewal is turned off at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. Your Apple ID is charged for renewal within the 24 hours before the current period ends, and payment is charged to your Apple ID at confirmation of any purchase. Any unused portion of a free trial is forfeited if you buy a subscription during the trial period.

How to cancel

Once available, subscriptions will be managed entirely by Apple, not by Lilu or us directly. To cancel or check your renewal date: open Settings on your iPhone → tap your name → Subscriptions → Lilu, and turn off auto-renew. (On older iOS versions: open the App Store app → your profile icon → Subscriptions.) Canceling stops the next renewal; it does not refund the current period, and you keep access until that period ends. We cannot cancel a subscription on your behalf — only Apple's own subscription management can.

Founding Lifetime

Founding Lifetime will be a one-time, non-consumable purchase, not a subscription — it won't renew and there will be nothing to cancel. It is planned to be offered only until 200 units are sold to first users; once that limit is reached, the offer would close to new purchases, while anyone who already bought Founding Lifetime keeps it regardless. Like any non-consumable purchase, it can be restored to any device signed into the same Apple ID using the app's Restore Purchases option.

Refunds on in-app purchases

Once purchases move inside the App Store, they will be billed and processed by Apple, and refund requests for them go through Apple, not us — reportaproblem.apple.com, or Settings → your name → Media & Purchases → View Account on your device. This is separate from the $19 early-access payment in §2, which we refund ourselves directly.

4. YouTube content, and what your payment actually pays for

We do not charge for, or sell access to, YouTube videos — they remain freely available on YouTube itself, to anyone, with or without Lilu. What your payment pays for is the learning layer we build around that video: the synchronized, word-by-word transcript (first generated by automatic speech recognition run on the clip's own audio, then checked by a native Mandarin speaker before publishing — a line the system can't make out is dropped, never guessed), tap-to-translate word lookups, your personal vocabulary list, spaced repetition review, and your learning plan.

Your use of any embedded YouTube video is also governed by the YouTube Terms of Service.

5. Reporting a clip

Every clip has a Report option in the app. Using it sends the clip and your reason directly to [email protected] — we read every report and remove clips that shouldn't be in the catalog. You can also write to us directly with a link or a description.

6. Acceptable use

Lilu is for your own personal, non-commercial language learning. You agree not to:

• reverse-engineer, scrape, or bulk-extract the app's transcripts or catalog;
• attempt to bypass the paywall or any copy-protection of the app or its content;
• use the app in any way that violates YouTube's Terms of Service; or
• resell, sublicense, or redistribute access to Lilu or its content.

7. Content accuracy

Transcripts, translations, and pinyin in Lilu are produced with a mix of automatic speech recognition and human review, for the purpose of helping you learn spoken Chinese — they are a learning aid, not a certified or professional translation, and may occasionally contain errors or gaps. Don't rely on Lilu for anything where translation accuracy carries legal, medical, financial, or safety consequences.

8. Educational purpose, not a substitute

Lilu is designed to build listening comprehension and vocabulary through exposure to real spoken Chinese. It does not replace a teacher, a certified course, or a language proficiency exam, and we make no promise about how quickly you will reach any particular level.

9. Intellectual property

The Lilu app itself — its design, code, and the transcript-and-translation system we build around each clip — belongs to Sergey Litau. The video clips themselves belong to their original YouTube creators, as described in §4. Using Lilu gives you a personal, non-transferable license to use the app for its intended purpose; nothing in these Terms transfers ownership of anything to you.

10. Disclaimer of warranties

Lilu is provided "as is" and "as available." We don't guarantee it will be uninterrupted, error-free, or available forever — video availability on YouTube in particular is outside our control, and a clip can be removed or blocked by its owner or by YouTube at any time. To the fullest extent the law allows, we disclaim all warranties, express or implied, about the Service.

11. Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent the law allows, we are not liable for any indirect, incidental, or consequential damages arising from your use of Lilu. Our total liability for any claim related to the Service is limited to the amount you paid us in the 12 months before the claim.

12. Payment method, before and after launch

Right now, before the app exists, PayPal is the only way to pay, exactly as described in §2 — there is no App Store listing yet for it to go through. Once Lilu ships and is available on the App Store, any purchase made inside the app itself will go through Apple's own In-App Purchase system, as described in §3 and as Apple's rules require; your earlier PayPal payment is not affected and is honored as lifetime access regardless.

13. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms as the app changes. We'll update the date at the top of this page and, for material changes, the app's release notes.

14. Governing entity and contact

Lilu is operated by Sergey Litau. For anything about these Terms, write to [email protected].