Hello all. One of the issues with learning Canto is that the Chinese ideograph, pronunciation annotations, audio, and English translations are seldom in one place --- and we almost never get that for texts of substantial length.

One of the central problem is that preparing jyutping, due to one-char-many-sounds and the lack of formal education for native speakers, is extraordinarily time-consuming. In the past year-and-half I've been solving that issue, producing the Canto Font that context-sensitively adds jyutping to your text.

With that out of the way, I want to use the tools I built to prepare a body of serious study material. 28 chapters, 1000 verses, 30000 jyutpings, and 3.5 hrs of recorded audio later, I have just completed the first work: the Gospel of Matthew.

https://preview.redd.it/bylzylcao9kb1.png?width=2390&format=png&auto=webp&s=ac50b6b841b8803ae90ff18ce0e8dc98150015f9

https://preview.redd.it/nixwyq1bo9kb1.png?width=3076&format=png&auto=webp&s=8ebdafe4ef6d01040490862196f32da357454772

Video of Chapter 26

This is a collection of parallel, bilingual texts, with jyutping over the Traditional Chinese characters. There are PDFs for print, audio for each chapter, and slide-decks so that each verse can be read-and-listened to, with ideograph, jyutping, translation, and audio all in one place.

I think this may be of interest to some of you as language-learning material; and if you know of folks / communities that would be interested in the subject matter, please help spread the word. This collection is available for try/buy at https://visual-fonts.com/store/.

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FAQs

What are the translations? The Zh-T uses 和合本, while En uses KJV.

Why not ____ edition? As a failed Catholic, I wanted to prepare the 思高聖經 edition / RSV-CE. I was unable to obtain the licensing. I also tried and was also unable to obtain the licensing for any other Zh editions.

Why Matthew? It's likely that I would only ever make one book, so it needed to be the most significant one. I think the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord's Prayer, and Love Thy Neighbour are culturally significant, and these are all present only in Matthew.

Are you going to do the rest of the Gospels? Probably not. This is a full time kinda activity, and between the Canto Font and this it's been 16 months of pro bono.

What other jyutping long form material are there? To my knowledge, the only other long-form work with jyutping is The Little Prince. (For bragging rights; the book of Matthew is about 25% longer.)

How can I help? If you know friends / communities that needs this material, please let them know. If you have access to a recording studio (and can let me use it cheaply/free for extended periods), that'd be super-helpful. If you blog, is a journalist, and want to write about the Canto Font; or have some community that wants to host talks about the Canto Font (pretty magical when seen in action), you can put us in touch too.

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If you have suggestions/requests for learning material of similar co-locating {glyph, jyutping , English, audio}, you can add them in the comments too. These can be original material of particular themes, or public domain text of some cultural significance. (My sense is that, despite a process, 40,000 characters is probably an upper-bound, so something like 三國 / 西遊 (even if the Canto works break even financially) would be off by an order of magnitude.)