When Chicken and Duck Talk: Learning to Swim

Joanna Szeto, children's book author

Which Chicken and Duck Talk: Learning to Swim is the first book in Joann's trilingual Chinese picture book series. She wrote it to show the similarities and differences between Cantonese and Mandarin. She also wanted multilingual children and families to know they didn’t need to choose one language over the other. Both Chinese languages are important. The Kickstarter campaign succeeded. Thank you for supporting the creation of my first trilingual Chinese picture book. Read reviews for Chicken and Duck Talk: Learning to Swim below. 

Joanna has been writing 8-page little Chinese readers for students in my classroom. Students thrive when they aren’t overwhelmed. Her picture book uses that same concept.

Chinese Vocabulary Book

The upper half of each page is written without romanization. Readers can choose to read the book in any Chinese language they know. Readers who speak Taishanese or Taiwanese can read it in their own language.

Readers can also choose to follow the color-coded page and speech bubbles to read the text in Cantonese (in blue) and Mandarin (in orange) with the help of Jyutping and Pinyin.

Cantonese and Mandarin Pronunciation Guide

The book includes Cantonese and Mandarin pronunciation guides, extra vocabulary, and tips and games for learning Chinese.