Cantonese Revision Aids

Update History 2002

2003 updates available here.

2002

• 28th December
  I have updated the online quiz to allow players to choose from 3 variations.
  Read More...
• 15th December - 聖誕節來臨了!
  Special offer for the Pocket PC Partner Chinese dictionary.  A 20% discount is now available (the discount link is at the top of the review).
  Seasons updated.
  New section, Christmas.
• 7th December
  The forums now allow you to specify your preferred language. read more...
• 17th November
  I have been in Italy for a few days so if you have mailed me please be patient and I will reply soon.
  How to Write Chinese Characters has now been moved into its own section and revised.
  The forums have been upgraded - more info...
• 27th October
  Directions now has sound files.  The Jyutping Pronunciation Guide has been updated to give more audio examples.
  I have written an "Absolute Beginners" introduction to the site for new visitors.
  Updated Parts of the Body, Verbs, Countries.
• 26th October
  Now 332 characters in the Online Quiz, so the top scores have been deleted again.
  Added John Nicholson's Mandarin Chinese to the links page.  Although it is Mandarin only it does contain some beautifully designed interactive pages which will teach some basic characters.
• 23rd October
  Organised "Beginners" list on this page alphabetically.
  Tweaked the look of the Hi-Score table and made the Online Quiz a bit better when restarting games.
  Minor updates to Buildings and Body.
• 20th October
  Started a new section: Health.  Comment on it!
  Special Occasions,  Drinks, Body updated.
• 15th October
  Online quiz database now contains 316 characters - now I just need to learn them all
• 14th October
  Kung Fu and Family both split into two sections.
  New section: Emotions.
• 9th October
  Just a quick note to say that I am still here, I have just been very busy lately .  Normal updates to the site will hopefully commence from next week.
• 24th September
  I've taken a peek at this month's web statistics and the site has already served a record 80,000+ pages during September, to an average of 430 visitors per day.
  So, a big 多謝 to everyone that uses the site!
  Updated Popular Characters, Numbers, Links, Fantasy.
• 15th September
  Level 4 added to the Online Character Quiz.
  Fantasy updated but still missing some pronunciation.
• 11th September
  Kung fu updated.
  New sections Popular Characters and Fantasy.
  Errors corrected in Jyutping essay.
  Maxent added to the Links page.
  Audio added for all the Pronouns.
  Yet more words added to the Online Character Quiz.
• 3rd September
  Audio added to Sizes.
  Fixed 上 and 下 links in groups of pages.
  More words added to the Online Character Quiz.
• 31st August
  Someone found a cunning exploit in the Online Character Quiz and managed to score 24 out of 10  
• 12th August
  Tattoo essay updated with a related link at the end.
  The Online Character Quiz is now more intelligent when picking questions. The High score table code has also been tweaked.
  9th August
  My favourite web browser, Opera, is running a promotion where you can register the full product for $19.99US. 
• 8th August
  I have been away in Cornwall for a few days which is why there have been no updates to the site.  I visited Corfe Castle, The Eden Project and Tintagel Castle, the weather was scorching hot and the scenery was fantastic!
• 28th July
  I have been very busy lately so I am behind in my correspondence on the forums and private e-mail.  I only have a few minutes to type this and then I'm off for some Dim Sum
• 22nd July
  Audio added to Places,  Basic Conversation 3, and Special Occasions.  Thanks go to my dad for kindly volunteering to be recorded!
  Yet more characters have been added to the Online Quiz and the High Score tables have been purged again.
• 18th July
  More characters added to the Online Quiz to make it more challenging.
  New section: Places.
• 17th July
  The whole of this website now follows colour coding to distinguish between written and oral Cantonese.  Please see this page for more details.
  Minor update to Difficulties for Western students essay.
• 10th July
  A chronic bout of insomnia over the weekend spawned a new Online Quiz. Thanks to 雪兒 for helping me test it and bringing the character database up to 140 words.  You can discuss the new quiz here.
  Links section updated with Cantonese Music section.
• 4th July
  DB functions continue to be improved.  You can now click characters from the Master List and 100 character test (which has been reduced to 50 by the way!) to see more information.
  Kung Fu and Numbers updated.
• 3rd July continued!
  Updated the FAQ.
  New section, "How you can help this site".
  Added more characters to the Database.
• 3rd July
  The First 100 Characters test has been converted to use the new database and now shows pronunciation and meaning as floating tooltips.
  People updated.
• 2nd July
  By popular demand, a Master Character List has been added - it is a snazzy database driven one too!
• 27th June
  Music added to Kung Fu.
• 24th June
  Slight redesign of this page to show the latest forum posts.  Let me know if this "What's new?" text is too small - I'm trying to save space.
• 19th June
  A query has been answered regarding my review of the Chinese Partner Dictionary for the Pocket PC.
  Another Link added.  
  Examples added for Compound Words section 白.
• 16th June
  Character graphics added to Compound Words sections 白 水 and 大.
  A few minor updates to some essays (eg links to some of the new sound files) and a fix to Countries.
  Some new Links added.
• 12th June
  There is a new essay, Chinese Tattoos, which contains a reprinted article from the Metro newspaper.  I'd like to thank the people from the Metro for giving permission to republish this story.
• 11th June
  I have been having fun with Chinese fonts.  You can see the results in the 手 page.
• 10th June
  I am experimenting with colour coding in the Compound Words section.  Please read the page and let me know what you think here in the forum.  If this colour coding is popular I will use it throughout the site.
  In other news, 手 has been added to the Compound Words section.
• 9th June
  Sound files added to Natural Objects 1 and 2. Thanks to Winnie for agreeing to be recorded!
  Minor updates to Help using the Forums, Acknowledgements and How to use this website.
• 8th June
  Well the China - Brazil game was very entertaining.  China did as well as could be expected I thought and Brazil looked awesome.
  Kung Fu, and Conversation 3 updated.
• 7th June
  Well done to South Korea and Japan on some impressive performances and "Good Luck" to China against Brazil on Saturday as they are going to need it!
  School and Sizes updated.
• 1st June
  The Discussion Forums have been upgraded, please see the latest Help File.
  New Intermediate compound word page, 大.
  School updated.
• 30th May
  I am back after a bit of a hiatus!  Apart from a load of stress and being busy, I managed to catch a throat infection and am now on antibiotics!  Feeling better now though so here is a small update.
  Flashcards page 5 updated as "ear" was already on page 2 - sorry! (耳 was replaced with 在)
  Adjectives added.
• 13th May
  No updates at all, sorry about that. A lot of things have cropped up lately which have taken up all my time.  I have still be going to my Cantonese class though so have lots of notes to publish as soon as I can transfer them to the computer!
• 2nd May
  No notable additions made for a while.  I have lots of half finished sections that will be published soon though.
  Some corrections have been made though and a thread started in the forum dedicated to discussing errors in the site.
• 30th April
  New forum: Translate This! - (solely for Chinese name requests etc)
  New Intermediate compound word page, 水.
  Contact page added.
  FAQ updated.
• 29th April
  Basic Conversation 3 completely rewritten.
• 26th April
  First sound sample added in mp3 format. Comment on this addition...
  Acknowledgements page added.
• 24th April
  An experimental feature has been added to the Flashcards to allow you to choose your Chinese font (if it is installed on your computer that is). Comment on this addition...
  Links to free Chinese fonts added.
• 23rd April
  New intermediate section of the site, Characters and Compound Words.  Please give me some feedback on this!
• 22nd April
  Started to reorganise and update the conversation sheets.
  More errors corrected from posts to the discussion forum.
• 17th April
  Partner Dictionary English-Chinese for Pocket PC reviewed.
• 9th April
  Kung fu, Special Occasions and Countries corrected (thanks to Joe).
  Fixed formatting problems that had crept in and affected the pages in Opera.
• 3rd April
  Various (mainly tonal) errors fixed throughout the site.
  Frequently Asked Questions page link fixed (thanks KD!)
• 31st March
  Frequently Asked Questions page added.
  Fixed problem on flashcard page 10 which caused the printing to mess up :-(
• 30th March
  The flashcards now number 200
  New section: Reviews.  If you would like to comment on this new section please do so by clicking here.
  A few new images added to make the site a bit more interesting on the eye!
• 24th March - Minor updates to Colours, School, Natural Objects 2, Vehicles, Cooking(2) and Special Occasions.
• 20th March - The Discussion Forum is getting more active and several people are taking the time to help out with questions.  A big 唔該 to everyone that posts!
  Tone numbers added to the Notepads.
  Cooking is now in 3 sections!
  Animals split into 2 sections
  Machines updated
  Seasons made a bit more attractive!
• 17th March - link to the free (open source) Mozilla web browser added as I am happy that it may be used to view this website perfectly.  I still prefer Opera though...
• 14th March - Started work on new section, Verbs (2).
  School, Weather and Directions updated. Weather will need to be split into two sections soon.
  Minor navigation improvements and some typos corrected in some essays.
• 11th March - A tiny new section, Kung Fu phrases added - I am hoping it will get bigger!  
  Cooking split into two sections. Animals split into two sections as well.
  Natural Objects 1 and Directions updated.
  New "quick" links added to the top corners of some of the revision sheets - hopefully this will make it easier to navigate between pages.  I will add the rest later.
  Lots of new Links have been added, including a separate Kung Fu links section.
  There are now 180 flashcards.
• 3rd March - Revision Sheet menu slightly reorganised.  
  New sections, Cooking and School.  New essay, Jyutping Romanisation. 
  At least a dozen existing sections have been updated.
  I no longer including alternative romanisation for any new sections - this means Jyutping will be used exclusively for any new pages.
• 27th February - No updates for a while as I have had the flu *:-(
  40 new Flashcards have been added though and several new revision sheets have been started.  I also wrote an essay on Jyutping pronunciation which was almost all lost when my computer crashed - most annoying...
• 18th February - 120 Flashcards now published and more jyutping tone numbers added.
• 13th February - yet more Flashcards, bringing the total to 100.  I'm very pleased with the way they are printing out by the way, is anyone else using them?
• 12th February - another page of Flashcards added.
• 11th February - 恭喜發財! (Congratulations!)
  祝你馬年行好運!  (Wishing you Good luck for the Year of the Horse!)
  - Split up an existing section into Buildings and At Home.
• 10th February - another 20 Flashcards added.  I've decided these are quite easy to print and make so I am planning on (eventually) doing one for every character I know.  Directions and People slightly updated.  The Links page now has a Chinese Culture section.
• 9th February - More Animals added.  The first part of a new project: Cantonese Flashcards, please let me know what you think!
• 3rd February - Eating Out, Verbs, Buildings and Furniture all updated. More correct jyutping added thanks to 雪兒.  Tidied up the HTML of a lot of pages.
• 27th January - Eating Out split into two sections and a new page, Special Occasions. More jyutping added to older pages.  Sections which have more than one page have now been reorganised a bit in the contents menu below.  They are also now 'next' and 'previous' links within sections such as Natural Objects.
• 22nd January - no real updates for a while as I've been busy!  An "eating out" section should be ready to publish soon though, as well as a page on Chinese New Year - which this year is The Year of the Horse (??).
  One change is to the stylesheet for all the pages.  I've altered the fonts used so that people can resize the fonts as much as they want.  Ideally you shouldn't notice any difference but please let me know if this breaks anything on your browser!  In IE5.5 some of the text looks a bit bigger than it used to.
• 14th January - this site is now getting more visitors, helped by a front page link on the excellent martial arts film review site,  BulletsnBabesDVD's.  More links have been added and people are starting to use the forums!
• 13th January - thanks go to a friendly contributor to this site, who sent me a lot of jyutping tone numbers.  Because of this, pronouns, family and verbs all now have the correct romanisation.
• 9th January - added a couple of links.  I'm a bit disappointed nobody is posting anything to the forums.  If you are a learner and want to ask a question, please post and someone may answer.  Even if you speak perfect Cantonese, please post some suggestions! 
• 7th January - added a few small illustrations on pages that had room for them.
• 6th January - reorganised and updated the Help pages.  Cleaned up many pages so they look perfect using the Opera web browser.  Updated the Links page.  Added Eating. 
• 5th January - lots of updates have been published today.  I have programmed a new test/memory jogger called The First 100 Chinese Characters.  Also added a new essay, Jyutping and Chinese Tones.  Thanks to 雪兒 for adding more tone numbers to these pages.

The history of the site before 2002 is murky, 
but I think it was started back in 2000 sometime... - /\dam

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