Talk Dim Sum4.4.0

Love dim sum, but don't know what to order or how to order? Bring this app, find what you like, and tap the speaker icon to hear the dish pronounced in Chinese (Cantonese or Mandarin) using iOS text-to-speech.

I made this app after visiting Hong Kong and trying to crash course learn Cantonese in the food courts. The early focus was just on dim sum and Cantonese text-to-speech and my favorite restaurants, but it's since expanded (with user tips and requests) to more broadly cover Chinese (and Chinese-American) food and include featrures (some user-requested) such as Mandarin (traditional and simplified), search (English and Chinese), saving favorites, AI camera recognition of dishes, speech-to-text practice, and restaurants everywhere (but they have to serve ha gow nad siu mai!).

So far the Pro features include saving favorites and speech-to-text practice. I want to keep the important basic features free, so consider upgrading, it's a tip-your-waiter kind of thing!

Tips:

If you don't hear the Chinese speech

1) check the mute switch on your iPhone and make sure it isn't on.
2) text-to-speech for a particular voice sometimes seems to require an internet connect, at least on initial use (same with speech-to-text, the microphone practice button).
2) sometimes a device will have trouble accessing the text-to-speech voice (it's the Hong Kong Chinese voice used for Accessibility in Settings), so try turning your device off and on.

Tapping the speaker icon plays back the Chinese pronunciation at half speed to help you learn. Tap the microphone icon to bring up more options, including adjusting the playback speed, switching between Cantonese and Mandarin, and practicing speaking.

You can adjust the default playback speed in Settings, from the menu at top left.

Settings is also where you can switch the default language between Cantonese, Mandarin with traditional characters, and Mandarin with simplified characters (Cantonese is the default).

Aside from the default speed, the speech may sound not quite natural because the app does not play back recorded speech but instead uses iOS text-to-speech functionality, which utters one character (i.e. one syllable) at a time, which may not match how an entire compound word or phrase is normallyl pronounced (you can hear this effect when using Siri).

The app supports landscape orientation on iPads, but to see full dish descriptions you have to rotate to portrait mode.

You can also search for dishes on the Search screen, and the individual dish pages have a tags menu that directs you to related dishes.

Dish pages also have links to more information and recipes on various web sites, including China Sichuan Food, Dim Sum Central, Dim Sum Guide, Dimsumptuous, Panda Cheffy, Unfamiliar China, Wikipedia, The Woks of Life....

A growing list (over fifteen hundred so far) of dim sum restaurants worldwide is provided, along with regional maps and links to web sites and reviews. If you live in an area not covered or know of a restaurant I missed, just let me know and I'll add it!

Related Cantonese vocabulary and links to dim sum and Cantonese resources also listed.

Stay tuned for more dishes in updates. Missing your favorite dish or want to recommend a restaurant or have other comments/suggetions/corrections? Please drop a review or send feedback using one of the links in the top left Technicat menu.

Talk Dim Sum is developed with:

The dim sum icon from Stock Image Folio on Iconfinder.com.

The technicat logo designed by Dakota Snow.

Photos from many dim sum excursions.

The following Swift open source packages: ImagePickerView, Qgrid, SQLite.swift, SwiftLog, SwiftUIPager, SwiftyJSON, SwiftyStoreKit, SwiftyUserDefaults
Talk Dim Sum V4.4.0更新日志：
Added Ming Hui Dim Sum 2 in Sacramento.
Added book recommendations for dim sum, Sichuan food, and boba.