Data Sources & Credits
Data sources & acknowledgements
MandarinMiles is built on open linguistic data. Several of these datasets are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0), which requires us to name the source and to share any modifications under the same terms. This page is our attribution record.
1. Dictionary & grammar data
| Dataset | Source / author | Licence | What we use it for | Our changes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CC-CEDICT | MDBG / CC-CEDICT contributors; originally by Paul Denisowski | CC BY-SA 4.0 | English definitions, pinyin, classifiers and multiple senses for the in-reader dictionary popup. | Definitions are re-sorted by word frequency; pinyin is converted from numbered to accented form; entries are re-bucketed for lazy loading. Modified portions are shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. |
| HSK 3.0 Vocabulary List (2025 syllabus, GF0025-2021) | HSK 3.0 vocabulary list contributors; derived from Chinese Proficiency Grading Standards for International Chinese Language Education (GF0025-2021) | CC BY-SA 4.0 | HSK level of each word (levels 1–6 and 7–9), used for the level colour system and the HSK badge in the dictionary popup. | Levels are mapped to the absolute 1–7 scale used across the site and to the level palette in the reader. Modified portions are shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. |
| HSK 3.0 Grammar Points | hsk-sentences-audio contributors | CC BY-SA 4.0 (dataset) / MIT (code) | The 413 official grammar points, the 70 automatic detection patterns and the example sentences that power the Grammar tab and the grammar highlighting in reader text. | Points are merged with the HSK 2025 syllabus grammar list and the official HSK 3.0 grammar outline; English labels are generated. Modified portions are shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. |
| HSK 2025 Syllabus Data | Derived from chinesetest.cn | Open data (attribution requested) | Part-of-speech labels for 11,000 HSK words and additional grammar points with example sentences. | Part-of-speech abbreviations are normalised and merged into the dictionary index. Modified portions are shared under CC BY-SA 4.0 where applicable. |
| SUBTLEX-CH | Cai, Q., & Brysbaert, M. (2010). SUBTLEX-CH: Chinese Word and Character Frequencies Based on Film Subtitles. PLoS ONE 5(6), e10729. | Free for research use | Word frequencies for 99,000 entries, used to order multiple senses so that the most common meaning appears first. | Frequencies are used only for ordering; the frequency data itself is unchanged. |
2. Components & libraries
- Hanzi Writer & hanzi-writer-data — Chris Chan and contributors. MIT (library) / Arphic Public License (stroke data). Animated stroke order for single characters in the dictionary popup.
- OpenCC JS — Apache-2.0. Simplified / Traditional Chinese conversion.
- Blocksy (parent theme) — GPL-2.0-or-later. Parent theme for this child theme.
3. Our own work
Reader texts, illustrations, narration audio, the level colour system, the interface and the reading experience are original to MandarinMiles. Where we have cleaned, merged, re-ordered or re-labelled open data (as described in Section 1), those modifications are released under CC BY-SA 4.0 alongside the original terms.
4. Reference works
- Cai, Q., & Brysbaert, M. (2010). SUBTLEX-CH: Chinese Word and Character Frequencies Based on Film Subtitles. PLoS ONE, 5(6), e10729.
- Chinese Proficiency Grading Standards for International Chinese Language Education (GF0025-2021) — HSK 3.0 syllabus.
- CEDICT / CC-CEDICT, originally by Paul Denisowski, maintained by MDBG.
5. CC BY-SA 4.0 — compliance statement
MandarinMiles incorporates material from CC-CEDICT, the HSK 3.0 Vocabulary List, HSK 3.0 Grammar Points, and related datasets, each licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0). In accordance with the licence, we provide:
- Attribution — clear credit to the original authors and source datasets is given on this page.
- ShareAlike — any modifications we have made to the licensed material (as described in Section 1) are made available under the same CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.
- Access — the modified data can be obtained by contacting us at [email protected].
For the full licence text, see creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode.
6. Correction & contact
If you spot an attribution that is missing or inaccurate, please contact us at [email protected] and we will correct it promptly.