Data sources & credits
Last updated: July 26, 2026
Tobe Nihongo builds on several open Japanese-language datasets. This page credits each of them as their licences require, and makes clear which parts come from third parties and which we wrote ourselves.
JMdict
© Electronic Dictionary Research and Development Group (EDRDG)
Used for: The click-to-look-up dictionary while reading: headwords, readings, parts of speech, English glosses, field and usage tags.
- Licence:
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Project page:
- https://www.edrdg.org/jmdict/j_jmdict.html
KANJIDIC2
© Electronic Dictionary Research and Development Group (EDRDG)
Used for: The kanji section: on/kun readings, meanings, stroke counts, indicative JLPT level and example words.
- Licence:
- CC BY-SA 4.0
KanjiVG
© Ulrich Apel
Used for: Stroke-order animations and the handwriting practice canvas for kanji and kana.
- Licence:
- CC BY-SA 3.0
- Project page:
- https://kanjivg.tagaini.net/
JLPT vocabulary lists
© Jonathan Waller (tanos.co.uk)
Used for: The N5–N1 level tags shown on dictionary entries, via the yomitan-jlpt-vocab dataset (CC BY-SA 4.0). Since 2010 the JLPT publishes NO official vocabulary list — this is a community-built reference.
- Licence:
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Project page:
- https://www.tanos.co.uk/jlpt/
Từ điển Hán Nôm (hvdic.thivien.net)
© Thi Viện
Used for: Sino-Vietnamese readings for kanji, via the KanjiDictVN dataset (KANJIDIC cross-referenced with the Hán Nôm dictionary).
- Licence:
- Source credit (data not subject to copyright)
- Project page:
- https://hvdic.thivien.net/
KanjiDictVN
© trungnt2910
Used for: The compiled dataset pairing Sino-Vietnamese readings with KANJIDIC entries.
- Licence:
- Source credit (data not subject to copyright)
- Project page:
- https://github.com/trungnt2910/KanjiDictVN
kuromoji + IPADIC
© Takuya Asano · Nara Institute of Science and Technology
Used for: Japanese morphological analysis — powers automatic furigana and detects which word you tapped when looking a word up.
- Licence:
- Apache-2.0 · IPADIC licence
- Project page:
- https://github.com/takuyaa/kuromoji.js
Derivative data we produced
The Vietnamese glosses on dictionary entries are translated from JMdict's English glosses. Because JMdict is released under CC BY-SA 4.0, those translations are a derivative work and are likewise released under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Likewise, any corrections or additions we make to KANJIDIC2 and KanjiVG data are released under the same licence as the source (CC BY-SA 4.0 and CC BY-SA 3.0 respectively).
We claim no copyright over the original data from the sources listed above.
Material written by Tobe Nihongo
Courses, lessons, JLPT practice sets, themed flashcard decks, reading and listening material, blog posts, the interface and the platform's source code are our own work. They are NOT covered by the open licences above and are protected under the Terms of Service.
The CC BY-SA share-alike condition applies only to material derived from the licensed data itself; it does not extend to our own learning material or source code.
About the JLPT name
The JLPT (Japanese-Language Proficiency Test) is administered by Japan Educational Exchanges and Services and the Japan Foundation. Tobe Nihongo is an independent service and is NOT affiliated with, endorsed by, or certified by those organisations. We use the test's name only to describe what our material prepares you for.
Licences for the open-source libraries used in the app are listed on the software licences page.