When I first met AJ’s dad, he was working as a zoo keeper. So I am particularly delighted to bring you my translation of Dear Zoo, a charming story about the zoo sending lots of different animals in hopes of finding the reader the perfect pet.
My partner still works with animals and we are both keen to pass on our love for them to AJ. Reading books to AJ have helped improved my animal vocabulary and I’m looking forward to one day visiting the zoo with AJ and having enough Cantonese at hand to talk about all the animals we see.
Translation Printable
To create this written Cantonese and Jyutping translation, I started with the Standard Written Chinese text (shoutout to JT who posted the SWC text with Cantonese pronunciation on the Cantonese Parents Facebook page). Then I used multiple Cantonese dictionaries and translators (I particularly love CantoDict as it highlights differences in spoken/written Cantonese and Mandarin) to double-check how the phrase the text more naturally in Cantonese. It’s not the perfect system but I would rather an imperfect translation over me not be able to read in Cantonese to AJ at all.
The printable is designed to be printed on A4 as this will mean the text will be the perfect size to fit in the board book. However, please check your printer settings to ensure the size you require.
As you can see, some pages require you to get a bit creative with text placement. I found there wasn’t enough space to include both the Cantonese and English labels on the animal flaps so I just stuck with the Cantonese. Also, on some pages, the text was clearer stuck on the inside of the flaps rather than underneath the illustration. For further instructions, see my post describing my process from start to finish.
Please let me know if you have any suggestions to improve my translation. Happy reading!
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Mama Bear Cantonese 