CantoPlay
(learn Cantonese on canvas)
We have an upcoming trip to Hong Kong, and my daughter's still learning Cantonese. It's not her dominant language - that's German, thanks to her environment - so I wanted her to practise a handful of practical phrases before we go.
I found out Duolingo doesn't offer Cantonese, so I made a baby version myself. I used ChatGPT 5 to go from nothing to a rough structure, then did the bug fixing and tweaking together with Gemini 2.5 Pro. The modes are inspired by the OpenAI GPT‑5 announcement livestream, but getting it to a usable, acceptable state was definitely not as quick and painless as in the demo. This game is made to be played on a laptop or an ipad.
What's inside
- Flashcards: Cantonese + German pairs with images; tap to hear the Cantonese & German pronunciations.
- Quiz: Hear the Cantonese word and pick the matching picture. Gentle feedback, no stress. No reading required.
- Mouse & Cheese mini-game: Steer a little mouse to the cheese; each bite speaks a new Cantonese word. She loves this one.
It runs as a single HTML file on the canvas with the Web Speech API for audio, designed to feel calm and targeted, not busy. Perfect for a quick practice session together.
👉 Play it here: CantoPlay (learn Cantonese)
Details
- Estimated build time: ≈ 2-4 hours depending on vibe coding experience
- Stack: vanilla HTML5 Canvas + Web Speech API; coded in Cursor with ChatGPT 5 and Gemini 2.5 Pro assisting
- Difficulty: Medium (lots of small UX tweaks, some problem solving with tts needed)
