Time to Eat – Everyday Chinese Expressions

Time to Eat Everyday Chinese Expression

The best way to acquire a language is to use the target language in everyday life.  You can start with something as simple as the daily routine with your child.  For little ones who have not started talking yet, they are listening to you.  They hear you and they are learning about the sound around them.  For the big kids, they are absorbing the new things around them and they have such great power to learn a new language.

The key is the interaction you have with your child.  Parents who are new to Mandarin often have concerns about pronunciation.  “Am I saying it correctly?”  “Is my pronunciation right?”  With the audio and visual resources that are easily accessible to you online, you can relax and learn with your child together with simple everyday Chinese expressions to start with.

One tip I always share with parents who are just starting is to listen to the Chinese expression, hear it in their mind and then say it slowly.

Here is how it works.  If I say “apple.”  First.  you will hear me say the word “apple.”  Second, you listen to the word “apple” that I just said in your mind.  Last, you say the word “apple”  slowly like what you just heard.  This echo method created by linguist Dr. Karen Steffen Chung works beautifully with adult learners.

Without further ado, let’s start with the expressions that you can use with your child right away!

 

English – traditional Chinese – pinyin – simplified Chinese

A simple way to say “Time to eat!” in Mandarin is “chī fàn le.”  Listen to it here!

• Time to eat! – 吃飯了chī fàn le 吃饭了

“chī”   is to eat

“fàn” is cooked rice and often it refers to a meal.

“le” is a suggested word.

You can use this pattern to talk about having different meals during the day.

• breakfast – 早飯 Zǎo fàn 早饭

• lunch – 午飯 wǔ fàn 午饭

• dinner – 晚飯 wǎn fàn 晚饭

 

The same applies to the food items that you might have.

 

pinyin –  English – Traditional Chinese  (Taiwan) | Simplified Chinese (China)

• chī sān míng zhì le – Time to have sandwiches! – 吃三明治了

• chī pī sà le – Time to have pizza! (Taiwan) – 吃披薩了

• chī bǐ sà le – Time to have pizza! (China) – 比萨了

• chī hàn bǎo le – Time to have hamburgers! (Taiwan) – 吃漢堡了

• chī hàn bǎo bǎo le – Time to have hamburgers! (China) – 吃汉堡包了

• chī yì dà lì miàn le – Time to have Spaghetti! – 吃義大義麵了 ｜吃意大利面了

• chī shā lā le – Time to have salad! – 吃沙拉了！

 

Replace the food items with some of your family’s favorite and practice everyday Chinese expressions together whenever it is possible throughout the day!  What is your child’s favorite food item word?  Now you can use it in the sentence!

 

 

Time to Eat Everyday Chinese Expression