Writing Lesson 2: Eat and Know Your Vegetables

I went in search of some of those vegetables and fruit I never knew how to say in Chinese (duh, because my Dad either doesn't cook these stuff or I never heard him terming them ever). I have affixed the pinyin for easy pronunciation, the number refers to the tone. If you don't know which tone goes which which number, google it, or see Wikipedia.

Again, notice that each noun is made up of usually two characters. 瓜 (gua1) is a common character suffix, meaning "melon" and 菜 (cai4) on its own means "vegetable". In the course of researching this post, I realised something astounding: many of the terms we use on vegetables here don't exist in "proper" Chinese! For example, you will get a funny look if you asked for a 番茄 or a 黄梨 in China. Another discovery is we've been getting a famously Singaporean drink wrong, if you asked for 玉米水 in China expecting to get a barley drink, people would think you're asking for a corn or oat drink! (which sounds gross)


芹菜 - celery
qin2  cai4

花菜 - cauliflower (translated as "flower vegetable")
hua1  cai4

西兰花 - broccoli (translated as "western orchid flower"!)

菠菜 - spinach
bo1 cai4

大葱 - onion (or Chinese leek, the Western round onion is known as 葱头)
da4 cong1


西红柿 or 番茄 - tomato
xi1 hong2 shi4             fan1  qie2    (nobody calls it 西红柿, the local preference is 番茄)

芋 - yam
yu 4          (I am used to saying 芋头, as in 芋头糕, yam cake, but it doesn't exist in the dictionary)

番薯 - sweet potato (funny, this also refers to "yam" in the dictionary)
fan1  shu3

玉米 - corn
yu4  mi3  (strange! Our entire nation has been calling our local barley drink 玉米水 when    the correct word for barley ought to be 麦  !)

麦  - wheat, barley, oat or maize
mai4        (Oatmeal is also known as 麦片 mai4 pian4)

南瓜 - pumpkin (funny that a pumpkin is known as a "melon from the south")
nan2  gua1

西瓜 - watermelon (translated as "melon from the west")
xi1  gua1

冬瓜 - Chinese squash/ winter melon
dong1 gua1      (this sounds like 东 = east, so you might have thought, aha! Melon from the east! But 冬 is "winter", and probably explains why locals here call it a "winter melon" rather than a white gourd/ squash)

木瓜 - papaya (don't ask me why a papaya is known as "wooden melon"!)
mu4  gua1

黄瓜 - cucumber
huang1 gua1    (again, I don't know why a cucumber should be translated as "yellow melon")


菠萝 - pineapple
bo1 luo2    (this is the proper word in China, but locals here call it 黄梨 ("yellow pear"!)

哈蜜瓜 - honeydew melon
ha1  mi4   gua1

芦笋 - asparagus
lu2 sun3  (there are two kinds of asparagus, the Chinese ones and the ones you find in the West)

蘑菇 - mushroom (refers to the western button mushroom)
mo2 gu1

冬菇 - mushroom 
dong1 gu1  type of shiitake mushroom that comes in dried form. It's translated as "winter mushroom" and more commonly used in Chinese cooking

香菇 - shiitake mushroom (translated as "fragrant mushroom")
xiang1 gu1


四季豆 - green bean or french bean
si4 ji4 dou4 (aka "four season bean", again, a stumper if you used it in Singapore


大蒜 - garlic
da4 suan4  (to ask for crushed garlic, a local favourite with a Haninanese chicken rice dish, say 蒜茸 suan4 rong2)


柠檬 - lemon
ning2 meng2   (I've been saying it wrong all these years! It's not "ling meng"!)


柿子椒 - bell pepper/ capsicum

shi4 zi jiao1  (another stumper, I don't know if anyone would get this one here, but the green pepper is called 青椒 qing1 jiao1)


辣椒 - chili
la4  jiao1        (so it should be no surpriose that a chili is called a "spicy pepper")


鳄梨 - avocado
er1 li2  (this is the winner - translates to "alligator pear"!)