Terms of Use

These terms apply to the use of "Hallo Otti!" (the "service"): the website, the web app and the app installed from it on your device.

The service is provided by Osonnia Studio, Inh. Dan Kraw, Schönhauser Allee 163 ("we", "us"). You can reach us at (visible with JavaScript); further details are in our Impressum.

You can read the public pages, such as the dictionary and "Decode a letter", without an account. The rules on fair use and on the learning content apply to them as well.

"Hallo Otti!" helps you learn German: words and phrases with translations, examples and pronunciation, everyday situations to learn them in, exercises, reviews at the right time (spaced repetition), a backpack for your favourite words and Otti the hedgehog, who learns with you.

With an account, the service also sends you the emails that belong to it: the links to confirm your email address and to reset your password and, once a week, Otti's diary: a short email in simple German with the words you practised that week. The diary is part of the service, on from the start and free of advertising; you can turn it off at any time in your profile or from the email itself. If you allow it in your browser, Otti also reminds you once a day.

Frau Hilde's explanations of an answer, her memory tricks and Otti's diary are written for you by an AI language model (OpenAI) when you ask for them or when they are due. Our privacy policy says which data is used for them.

The service is meant for learning and practice. It does not replace a language course, a teacher, a translator or legal advice, and it does not lead to a certificate. "Decode a letter" shows the words of a text; it does not tell you what the letter means for you.

We keep developing the service. Features may be added, changed or removed, as described under "Availability and changes".

You need an account to learn with "Hallo Otti!" and to save your progress. You must be at least 16 years old to create one. If you are younger, you need the consent of a parent or guardian.

Give your name or a nickname and an email address that belongs to you, and confirm it with the link we send you. Each person may have only one account, and an account cannot be passed on to someone else.

Keep your password secret and do not use it for other services. If you think someone knows your password or uses your account, change your password in your profile at once and let us know.

You are responsible for what is done with your account, unless you are not to blame for the misuse.

To create an account, fill in the sign-up form, accept these terms and press the button that creates the account. Until then you can check and correct your entries in the form at any time; afterwards you can change them in your profile.

By pressing the button, you offer to conclude the contract; we accept the offer by sending you the link to confirm your email address. You can use your account once you have confirmed it.

The contract languages are English, Ukrainian, Russian and German (see "Final provisions"). We store when you accepted these terms. They are always available on this page, where you can save or print them; on request we send you the version you accepted.

Learning with "Hallo Otti!" is free of charge. There are no paid plans, and nothing is charged.

Should we ever offer paid features, we will tell you in advance, and the section "Changes to these terms" applies.

Use "Hallo Otti!" only for your own learning and in line with the law.

In particular, you may not:

• access, or try to access, other people's accounts or data;
• get around security measures or limits, such as the limits on sign-ups, log-ins and Frau Hilde's explanations;
• overload or disrupt the service, for example with automated mass requests;
• create accounts automatically or with someone else's data;
• use Frau Hilde's explanations or Otti's diary to produce content that is unlawful, offensive or has nothing to do with learning;
• copy the learning content systematically, for example to build another app or database. Search engines and other crawlers may read the public pages as robots.txt allows.

If you break these rules, we may block your account for a time or close it, as described under "Ending the contract".

We prepare the words, translations, examples, explanations, pictures and other content with care, but we cannot rule out mistakes; check anything important elsewhere. If you find a mistake, please tell us.

The pronunciation comes from the speech output of your device or browser, so how it sounds depends on them.

On a word's page you can open other dictionaries (Linguee, Wiktionary), and some pages link to other sites. Those sites are responsible for their content; we have no influence on it.

The texts, the learning content, the design and the character Otti are protected by law, and we hold the rights to use them. You may use them for your own learning within "Hallo Otti!". Any other use, especially copying them into other products or publishing them, needs our prior consent in text form. The pictures on the page "Otti's Pictures for Teachers" may be used under the licence CC BY 4.0, as described there. Sharing links to our pages, and the pictures of your progress or of Otti's map that the service makes for you, is always welcome.

Our sources:

• the grammar data of the words (gender, plural, forms, pronunciation): the German Wiktionary (de.wiktionary.org) by the Wiktionary contributors, through kaikki.org, under the licence CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). We have selected, shortened and rearranged these data; on our pages they are available under the same licence;
• the word frequencies: Wortschatz Leipzig (Leipzig Corpora Collection), CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/);
• the map of Berlin: Geoportal Berlin (dl-de/zero-2-0) and OpenStreetMap (© OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL, https://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright).

We do our best to keep "Hallo Otti!" available at all times. However, there is no right to uninterrupted availability: maintenance, updates, technical faults or events outside our control can interrupt the service.

We may change the service when this is reasonable for you, for example to improve it, to keep it secure or to meet technical or legal requirements.

If we shut the service down completely, we will tell you by email at least 30 days in advance, so that you have time to download your data in your profile.

We are liable without limitation for damage caused intentionally or by gross negligence, for injury to life, body or health, and under the German Product Liability Act (Produkthaftungsgesetz).

For slight negligence, we are liable only if we breach an essential obligation: an obligation that makes the proper use of the service possible in the first place and that you may normally rely on. In that case, our liability is limited to the damage that is typical and foreseeable for this kind of service.

Apart from that, we are not liable. These limits also apply to the personal liability of our employees, representatives and agents.

We process your personal data in line with the GDPR and only as far as the service needs it. Our privacy policy explains which data, why, for how long, who else receives it and what your rights are.

We use only the cookies the service needs to work, and no tracking or advertising cookies (cookies).

You can download all your data at any time in your profile, in a common machine-readable format (JSON). When you delete your account, we delete your data, unless the law requires us to keep it.

You can end the contract at any time and without notice by deleting your account in your profile.

We can end the contract with 30 days' notice by email. Until it ends, you can download your data in your profile.

We can close your account without notice for good cause, especially for serious or repeated breaches of these terms, such as attacks on the service or on other users' accounts. Where reasonable, we will warn you first.

When the contract ends, we delete your account and your data, as described under "Your data".

We may change these terms for a valid reason, for example because of new features or new legal requirements. Changes must be reasonable for you.

We will send you the new terms by email at least 30 days before they take effect. Changes that do not touch the main obligations of the contract take effect then; until that day you can end the contract free of charge by deleting your account. We will point this out in the email.

Changes to the main obligations, for example to what the service offers you or to a price, take effect only if you agree to them.

The date at the top of this page shows when these terms were last changed.

German law applies, excluding the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods. If you are a consumer living in another country, the mandatory consumer protection rules of that country still protect you.

These terms are available in English, Ukrainian, Russian and German. If the versions differ, the German version applies.

If a provision of these terms is invalid, the other provisions remain valid.