Posted on Leave a comment

Mother’s Day 母親節

Mother’s Day is celebrated at many different times around the world. Many countries celebrate Mother’s Day on the second Sunday of the month of May. Here are some resources that you can use to celebrate Mother’s Day or learn about different mothers.

Mother’s Day Vocabulary

Here are some relevant vocabulary you can teach your child for Mother’s Day. Below is in traditional/simplified Chinese characters and includes the jyutping for Cantonese pronunciation).

  • 母親節/母亲节 (mou5 can1 zit3 | Mother’s Day)
  • 母親節快樂/母亲节快乐 (mou5 can1 zit3 faai3 lok6 | Happy Mother’s Day)
  • 媽媽/妈妈 (maa4 maa1 | mother)
  • 媽咪/妈咪 (maa1 mi4 | mommy)
  • 嫲嫲 (maa4 maa4 | paternal grandmother)
  • 婆婆 (po4 po2 | maternal grandmother)
  • 我愛你/我爱你 (ngo5 oi3 nei5 | I love you)
  • 親愛的媽媽/亲爱的妈妈 (can1 oi3 dik1 maa4 maa1 | Dear mom)

Mother’s Day Activities

For a simple no prep activity, download and print colouring sheets. This is great for toddlers all the way up to grade school children and does not require any specific skills.

Sweet Note Learning | Mina Learns Chinese

For a little more creativity, download these Mother’s Day card or heart templates. Customize and decorate them to your child’s desires. Great for preschool children and up who can handle scissors and glue.

Sweet Note Learning Card | Sweet Note Learning Hearts | Spot of Sunshine Card

For moms whose love language is acts of service, here is a list of items the family can do together to help around the house and make mom feel special. Presented in a fun BINGO chart, the kids will want to do it all.

Sweet Note Learning

For older children who can write, download this printable to learn what the kids know about their mom and why they love her

Sweet Note Learning

Mother’s Day Songs

容祖兒 (Joey Yung) – 世上只有

奇音樂奇世界 – 期待著媽媽

黐住這一家 Sticky Love Family – Super 媽咪

Che Che Music – 我的媽媽

小水滴與木頭仔的兒歌世界 Waterboy and Babywood Kids Channel – 媽媽,我永遠愛你

Mother’s Day Books & Stories

最喜歡媽媽了!

(I love Mommy the most!)

ISBN:9786267043981

Buy it in:

Click here for: YouTube Read Aloud (Cantonese)

媽媽買綠豆

(Let’s Get Mung Beans!)

ISBN:9789861612607

Buy it in:

Click here for: YouTube Read Aloud (Cantonese)

因為媽咪愛你!

(Because Mommy Loves You!)

ISBN:9789862115268

Buy it in:

媽媽的一碗湯

(Mama’s Bowl of Soup)

ISBN:9789861898179

Buy it in:

媽媽上班的時候會想我嗎?

(Will Mama Miss me at Work?)

ISBN:9789865925772

Buy it in:

Click here for: YouTube Read Aloud (Cantonese)

小雞到外婆家

(Little Chicks Visit Grandma)

ISBN:9786267043097

Buy it in:

Click here for: YouTube Read Aloud (Cantonese)

我的嫲嫲/我的婆婆

(My Grandma)

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B09ZQ3P9C7/B09YCN8JB3

Buy it in:

Two versions available: both versions are paternal grandma depending on dialect

Click here for: YouTube Read Aloud (Cantonese)

畀婆婆嘅禮物

(A Gift for Popo)

ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1953281923

Buy it in:

Other versions available: Standard traditional & simplified Chinese with pinyin and English

Click here for: YouTube Read Aloud (Cantonese)

Mother’s Day Videos

Kala EE – Learning Caring Baby & Mother

麥兜 – 母親節感人至深小故事

Jacey Learning – Mother’s Day 母親節

More Cantonese Children Apps and Resources

Shop More Products

Posted on Leave a comment

Earth Day 世界地球日

Each year on April 22nd, people all around the world celebrate Earth Day. Many people will do their part to protect the Earth by conserving electricity, making a conscious effort to reduce waste, a neighbourhood clean up and more. I want to share some Earth Day activities and resources your family can use to celebrate and learn about Earth Day together.

Earth Day Vocabulary

Here are some relevant vocabulary you can teach your child for Earth Day. Below is in traditional/simplified Chinese characters and includes the jyutping for Cantonese pronunciation).

  • 世界地球日 (sai3 gaai3 dei6 kau4 jat6 | International Earth Day)
  • 地球一小時 (dei6 kau4 jat1 siu2 si4 | Earth hour)
  • 地球 (dei6 kau4 | Earth)
  • 回收 (wui4 sau1 | recycle)
  • 捐 (gyun1 | donate)
  • 保護/保护 (bou2 wu6 | protect)
  • 垃圾 (laap6 saap3 | garbage)
  • 執垃圾 (zap1 laap6 saap3 | pick up the garbage)
  • 抌垃圾 (dam2 laap6 saap3 | throw away garbage)
  • 減少垃圾 (gaam2 siu2 laap6 saap3 | reduce waste)
  • 清理垃圾 (cing1 lei5 laap6 saap3 | clean up trash)
  • 熄燈/熄灯 (sik1 dang1 | turn off the light)
  • 閂水喉/闩水喉 (saan1 seoi2 hau4 | close the water tap)
  • 環保袋/环保袋 (waan4 bou2 doi2 | reusable bag)
  • 環保樽/环保樽 (waan4 bou2 zeon1 | reusable water bottle)
  • 環保飲筒/环保饮筒 (waan4 bou2 jam2 tung2 | reusable straw)
  • 播種/播种 (bo3 zung2 | plant seeds)
  • 出去玩 ( ceot1 heoi3 waan2 | play outside)
  • 造紙/造纸 (zou6 zi2 | make paper)
  • 乾淨/干净 (gon1 zeng6 | clean)

Earth Day Activities

Earth Day is a great opportunity to take action and be hands on to do our part to protect the Earth. Below is a free Earth Day bingo that I created that has child friendly actions they can do to reduce waste and protect the Earth from pollution. Activities, crafts or art that include recycle material are also great activities for Earth Day.

Earth Day Bingo (free download)

Earth Day Posters (free download)

Chalk Academy – Waste Sorting activity

藝術本子 – DIY Recycle Paper (Cantonese audio)

Other Earth Day activities

  • Community clean up
  • Plant flowers, vegetables, plants or flowers
  • Upcycle crafts with recycled materials
  • Make a poster to encourage others to protect the Earth

Earth Day Songs in Cantonese

嘉芙姐姐 – 地球村

Music Therapy In Class Hong Kong – 環保生活

威威與好友 Whiskers & Friends – WeWaWeWeWa救救地球

Earth Day Stories in Cantonese

Go Green for Earth Day

Cantonese Mommy – 如果有一天 我們都沒有東西吃 (What if one day there’s no food for us to eat)

Earth Day Topics Videos in Cantonese

Kala EE – Exploring food waste composting factory in Hong Kong

Kala EE – Exploring WEEE. PARK & e-waste recycling

Kala EE – Learn about beverage cartons, recycling & pulp mill

Kala EE – Story of waste classification & recycling

Kinder HK – Recycling

Kinder HK – Waste Reduction

綠色力量 Green Power – Litter in the Environment

EVIGarten – Waste

Donut and Ah Meow – Waste Sorting

Michigan Cantonese Storytime – Earth Day Vocabulary

More Useful Information

Recyclable and non-recyclable material poster. English, Chinese, Filipino & Indonesian version available. Provided by the government of Hong Kong.

https://www.wastereduction.gov.hk/en/recommended-and-not-recommended-recycling.html

Waste Reduction Tips provided by the government of Hong Kong. Website can be easily changed to traditional Chinese, simplified Chinese, and English.

Plastic Reduction Tips by Eco Drive Hong Kong. Posters with tips to reduce single use plastic at school, office, home and more. Available in traditional Chinese and English.

More Cantonese Children Apps and Resources

Shop More Products

Posted on Leave a comment

Mid Autumn Festival

Mid Autumn Festival is coming up soon on September 29 2023. It’s a time to gather with friends and family and enjoy delicious foods like mooncake while gazing at the moon. Here’s a few books, songs and activities that you can do with the kids this year.

Mid Autumn Festival Books

A Big Mooncake for Little Star (小星的大月餅) by Grace Lin

ISBN: 9789865535193

A story about a little girl who sneaks a bite every night of her mooncake. This book is available in Chinese and English.

English version: Kozzi, Amazon; Chinese version: Kozzi

Cantonese read aloud: 采姐姐的故事王國 Lillian’s Story Kingdom

Mooncakes by Loretta Seto

ISBN 1459814312

This book features a family celebrating Mid-Autumn Festival while telling three of the festival tales. This book is in English.

Buy it here: Kozzi, Amazon

English read aloud: The Dream Big Bookshelf

Bitty Bao Mid-Autumn Festival Set

Our Moon, Mid Autumn Festival and Mooncake

Bitty Bao has a collection of board books for festival. Buy them as a set or individually. There is a Cantonese version and a Mandarin version.

Buy it here: Bitty Bao, Yuto, Kozzi

Peppa and the Moon Festival

ISBN 9780241369067

Peppa and her friends celebrate the Moon Festival with lanterns and mooncakes.

Buy it here: Taobao

幸福月餅店 by 鄭宗弦

ISBN 9789578602731

A family own bakery shows us how to make mooncakes for Mid Autumn Festival.

Buy it here: Kozzi

Cantonese read aloud: Cantonese Mommy, Michigan Cantonese Storytime

14隻老鼠賞月 by 岩村和朗

ISBN 9787544812351

This mice family builds a moon lookout in a tree. When the moon arrives they eat delicious food and thank the moon.

Cantonese read aloud: Cantonese Mommy

Other Mid-Autumn Festival Books

Mid-Autumn Pop Up Book – 中秋節 and 團圓中秋節.

Thanking the Moon: Celebrating the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival [an English book about Mid-Autumn Festival, by Grace Lin; available on Little Kozzi and Amazon]

Mid Autumn Festival Songs

望望月光 食食月餅 by Eveline (Rhythm N Rhyme) and Dorothy (Locy Lee Learning)

月餅歌 by 嘉芙姐姐

中秋佳節 by 嘉芙姐姐

中秋歌 by Sunshine Nursery Rhyme

點點燈籠 by Bettina Wan (曉樂兒歌 HealingVoices Music)

圓圓的中秋 by Che Che Music (車車姐姐)

Mid Autumn Festival Activities

If you are looking for a one stop shop for activities, try out my Mid-Autumn Activity Book, available on Little Kozzi. There are flashcards to learn related vocabulary, colouring pages with stroke order characters, activities, and crafts to learn about the different traditions in an interactive, hands-on way. This activity book is bilingual and includes English and traditional Chinese characters on each page. Flashcards include jyutping (Cantonese pronunciation) and a vocabulary list that includes jyutping is included if you cannot read Chinese. Templates for all the crafts are also included. An art tutorial to draw lanterns is also included, hosted by Cherry 老師 from Children’s Cues in Cantonese. Purchase here: Mid-Autumn Activity Book

Another fun activity to do with the little ones is make mooncakes together. You can bake them or you can make them with playdough. You can purchase mooncake molds at your local Asian market or you can try Amazon. If you cannot get molds, Kumara Squad (@kyl.scrapbook) has shared a fun ecofriendly way to make them using recyclable materials. You can watch it here on her IG account, @kyl.scrapbook Playdough Mooncakes.

Lanterns is also another fun must activity for Mid-Autumn Festival. Check out these fun ideas here by Spot of Sunshine, and TVB Hands Up (Cantonese Video).

Mid Autumn Festivals Videos

Follow Kala EE to a bakery to make mooncake for her favourite Mirror members while learning vocabulary. Follow Kala EE to shop to learn about lanterns and make them together while learning vocabulary (traditional Chinese characters and English translations). Toddlers to school age children will enjoy Kala EE fun and positive personality.

Learn 5 Mid-Autumn Festival vocabulary while also learning about the festival with Uncle Calvin. Great for toddlers and preschoolers. Jyutping included. Turn on subtitles for English.

TVB Hands Up has a fun skit featuring lantern riddles and toy lanterns.

Sunshine Nursery Rhyme teaches us about the tales and customs of Mid-Autumn Festival.

Learn about different vocabulary that contain the word moon 月 and also a little about the tales of Mid Autumn Festival.

Twinklebots Cantonese teaches us Mid-Autumn Festival vocabulary, Jyutping included.

Mid Autumn Festival Toys

Bitty Bao: 13-Piece Magnetic Wooden Mooncake Toy Set [Bitty Bao, Little Kozzi]

My Heart Felt Toys Felt Mooncake [My Heart Felt Toys]

Baby Snack Time Mid Autumn Moon Festival Wooden Tea Pretend Play Set [Baby Snack Time]

More Cantonese Children Apps and Resources

Shop More Products

Posted on 9 Comments

Books with Jyutping

I love books with jyutping! It is inclusive to families who are learning to speak or read in Cantonese. Cantonese is a very hard language, a consistent pronunciation guide is helpful for us learners to learn together, communicate with each other and look up unfamiliar words. If you are new to jyutping, it is a romanization system for Cantonese developed by the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong. Jyutping and Yale are the most common Cantonese romanization. However, I have found jyutping is more accessible than yale. To learn more about jyutping, you can watch the following videos on YouTube: jyutping introduction and Cantonese tones.

I am thrilled to see many Cantonese resources available now. The community has really thrived in the last couple of years. Below I will share some books that have jyutping that you might want to add to your home library.

If you are looking for more Cantonese content with Jyutping, make sure to check out my shop and printables for more fun activities.

Quick Links

Board Books

Duck Duck Books

  • I Am Me! 我就係我自己!
  • All Puppies Are Good Puppies 所有嘅狗仔都係乖狗仔
  • I Love You More 我最愛嘅人就係你

Available in many countries. Full list here.

Bitty Bao, Lulu Cheng & Lacey Benard

  • Counting with Dim Sum
  • The Colors of Snow Ice
  • Everyday Heroes
  • Celebrating Chinese New Year – a book about family
  • Lucky Lunar Animals – a book of animals
  • Dragon Boat Festival – a book of shapes
  • Boba Emotions – a book of emotions
  • Foodie Detectives – a book of clues
  • It’s Hot Pot Time!

Also available at Little Kozzi, Summit Kids, De Ziremi 禧西利米 and more.

Jojo Adventure Books, Emily Shan

  • Jojo Goes to the Aquarium 祖兒去水族館
  • Jojo Goes Berry Picking 祖兒去摘莓
  • Jojo Goes to the Zoo 祖兒去動物園

Kebi Books, Nathan

  • A Magical Book of Numbers*

Also available at Little Kozzi, De Ziremi 禧西利米 and more.

* The physical book features Mandarin text and pinyin. With the augmented reality (AR) app, the book can display Cantonese text, jyutping and Cantonese audio.

Cantonese Stories written in Conversational Cantonese

These books are written in conversational Cantonese. You will see words such as 嘅 instead of 的 and 係 instead of 是.

Little Canto Learning, Farina Leong

  • My Troublesome Little Sister 我的麻煩妹妹
  • My Grandma 我的嫲嫲, 我的婆婆

Available at Amazon.

Mooliprint, Ann Hamilton

  • Goldilocks and the Three Bears 高蒂樂絲與三隻小熊
  • The Three Little Pigs 三隻小豬
  • Oh No, Monty! 唔好呀,Monty!
  • Rapunzel 長髮姑娘

Also available at Amazon.

Lele and Monkey, Tiffany Kwan

  • Lele Goes Out to Play 樂樂出去玩
  • Monkey’s Great Adventure 馬騮仔的大冒險

Also available at Little Kozzi, De Ziremi 禧西利米 and more.

Lychee Press, Katrina Liu

  • Mina Goes to the Beach 米娜去沙灘
  • A Colorful World 彩色世界
  • I Found It 我搵到喇
  • I Love My Grandpa 我愛我嘅公公

Also available at Amazon.

Cue Education, Kapo Szeto

  • Let’s Have Dim Sum 齊齊食點心 
  • Happy Chinese New Year!​ 新年快樂!
  • Chinese Bakery 中式餅店 
  • Travel the World with Me​ 陪我環遊世界
  • My Daily Routine​ 我的日常生活
  • Who’s in the Forest? 誰在森林裡?
  • Eating Utensils 餐具
  • The Way I Feel 我的心情
  • The Everchanging Weather 多變的天氣
  • Dressing Warm for Winter 溫溫暖暖過冬天

Cat Like Studio Books, Deborah Lau

  • Today is my Birthday! 今日係我生日啊
  • Cycling in Spring 春天踩單車

Available at Amazon.

Jok Sing Jai, Samantha Chan

  • I’m Too Loud! 我太嘈啦!

Available at Amazon.

Annie Mau

Also available at Little Kozzi and more.

Hambaanglaang

  • Full Collection of 40 books, hard copy
  • Also has free resources on their website and YouTube channel

Also available at Little Kozzi and more.

Cantonese Stories Written in Standard Chinese

These books are written in the standard Chinese written form.

Jok Sing Jai, Samantha Chan

  • Who’s Not Sharing? 誰不是在分享?
  • I Love My Daddy 我愛爸爸
  • Because My Mommy Loves Me 因為我的媽媽愛我
  • Who’s The Winner? 誰勝出了?
  • What Fruit Am I? 我是什麼水果?
  • Chinese New Year Greetings For Jok Sings
  • Lucky Red Mittens 幸運紅手套

Available at Amazon.

Super Speak Juniors, M Kan & H Wang

  • Chinese Legends

Available at Amazon.

Vocabulary Books

Little Canto Learning, Farina Leong

  • My First Words in Chinese
  • Animals 動物
  • Daily Vocab
  • Food and Drink 食物和飲品
  • My House 我的屋

Available at Amazon.

Green Cow Books, Karen Yee

  • My First Everyday Words
  • My First Animals
  • My First Colors
  • My First Book of Things that Go
  • Goh Goh and Dai Dai’s
  • Big Day with Elephant

Also available at Little Kozzi, De Ziremi 禧西利米 and more.

Level Readers

Little Bean Cantonese, Sophie & Nanz

  • 小豆釘, 40 issues available

Only available at Little Bean Cantonese’s Patreon page. Only introduction of characters includes jyutping. Rest of the text does not include jyutping.

Idioms

Ah To

  • Cantonese.jpg
  • Cantonese2.jpg

Also available at Little Kozzi

Nursery Rhymes

  • Classic Cantonese Nursery Rhymes (with Jyutping) • 廣府童謠氹氹轉(彩圖粵語注音版)
  • Cantonese Tang Poetry (with Jyutping) • 粵韻唐詩(彩圖粵語注音版)
  • Cantonese Song Poetry (with Jyutping) • 粵韻宋詞(彩圖粵語注音版)

Also available at Little Kozzi.

Learn to Speak Cantonese

Inspirlang, Jade Wu

  • Learn to Speak Cantonese I
  • Learn to Speak Cantonese 2

Also available at Amazon.

Mooliprint, Ann Hamilton

  • Every Day Cantonese for Parents

Also available at Amazon.

Cantonese for Everyone 大家嘅廣東話, Chow Bun Ching

I have 2 in stock for GTA, Ontario pick up.

Bilingual Activity Books

Sweet Note Learning, Pauline

If you are looking for more Cantonese content with Jyutping, make sure to check out my shop and printables for more fun activities.

More Cantonese Children Apps and Resources

Shop More Products

Posted on Leave a comment

VisionKids Translation Pen Review

There are many translation pens out there. Many of which can only read Chinese characters in Mandarin. I was very excited to hear about this pen and how it can translate to Cantonese. Read below for my review of the pen. Please note, this is my personal experience with the pen and with the Cantonese language function only. It can translate many other languages.

Short Review

Pro’s:

  • reads simplified and traditional characters in Cantonese (wifi connection needed) and Mandarin
  • can read Chinese text in both the horizontal and vertical position (wifi connection needed)
  • translations are fair and not awkward
  • auto detects and corrects scan errors
  • text and voice translations functions

Con’s:

  • translation speed not instant
  • can read individual characters in Mandarin, not Cantonese
  • full sentence scan needed, cannot scan individual characters, words or short phrases
  • zhuyin affects scan accuracy
  • scan accuracy goes down with vertical and traditional characters in comparison to horizontal and simplified text
  • auto correct will change words if it does match their narrative

Long Review

I tried out this pen for one month with a variety of books in my home library to determine if this book would suit my family needs. For videos of the pen, please check out my Instagram post.

1. I was thrilled to find out that this pen CAN read characters in the vertical position. This only works with Wi-Fi connection for both Cantonese and Mandarin. The [100 Storey Home series] (100層樓的家) and my bridge books are printed in the vertical position. The pen worked great with the 100 Storey Home series! The bridge books that I own are also in vertical position with in line zhuyin to the right of the characters. This takes practice to get the scan correctly. If the pen picks up the zhuyin, it confuses the text as Japanese and does not read correctly. I need to scan slightly to the left. Another way to scan the text is by covering the zhuyin with a piece of paper. Since it is to the right of the characters, that is fairly easy to do. I did find that the scan accuracy does go down with vertical text and that I sometimes need to scan a few times to get it correct. I think this is an amazing feature to have and very useful for bridge books.

2. The autocorrect function is amazing but also frustrating at the same time. Sometimes I see inaccurate scans, and am ecstatic to find that the pen auto-corrected it to the right word. Sometimes it looks like the pen scans gibberish but actually scanned everything correctly. I become extremely frustrated when I see that it scanned the characters correctly but decided to change the characters to match its own narrative. Some characters that the pen consistently kept changing were toad 蟾蜍 and swing 鞦韆. Being unable to scan toad was a big deal for me as I needed to read [Frog and Toad] in Chinese and Toad comes up very often. For the majority of the text, the scans are accurate. I believe that more complex characters with more strokes are harder to scan.

3. To get an accurate scan in Chinese, you must scan a full sentence. It does not scan individual characters, words or short phrases. This was disappointing as I had seen @lahlahbanana post a video of her children using the Alpha Egg translation pen and it could scan individual characters. Once you scan the full sentence, you must wait for it to translate. Translation is not instant. The more you scan, the longer it takes to translate. This felt like a life time and I felt it really disrupted the flow of reading. The pen can tell you pronunciation for individual characters only in Mandarin with pinyin included, not Cantonese and no jyutping. I found this part very difficult as I had to listen to the audio several times to catch the target word.

4. Horizontal text with in line zhuyin really disrupts the pen scan accuracy. It will pick up the zhuyin as numbers, alphabet letters, punctuation or Japanese characters. The translation and the audio will not be the greatest but for an adult learner, you can get the gist of the translation. Not ideal for a child. To overcome this challenge, I created a zhuyin block bookmark for my [Frog and Toad] books. I was able to block the zhuyin and get an accurate scan. However I do not recommend this method unless you have a series of books that utilize the same font, size and style. This bookmark only works in my Frog and Toad set and other bridge books by the same author. All my other books with zhuyin have different font styles and sizes that it does not work.

Final Verdict

I enjoyed the pen but if it will match your family needs will depend on your home library, fluency and learning style. My home library consists of an almost equal proportion of simplified Chinese, traditional Chinese and traditional Chinese with zhuyin. The scans were fairly accurate and the translations were easy to understand. If you have a lot of books with zhuyin, I don’t think these translation pens are ideal. This pen did not work for my family as I am not an auditory learner. Because I had to listen to an entire sentence to learn a target word, it took multiple takes as I could never quite catch the word I needed.

I purchased this pen in hopes that I could read harder books with my children without pre-reading them. I was not able to achieve this goal for the reason above. There is no easy way out yet for me. I will most likely still have to pre-read, translate new words before reading with my child to ensure we can read our books with a good flow.

More Cantonese Children Apps and Resources

Shop More Products