HSK 5 · Food

馒头 mántou “steamed roll” in Chinese

Traditional 饅頭

What 馒头 means

  1. steamed roll
  2. steamed bun

How to say 馒头

  • Pitch chart of the second tone: rises from mid to high, 3 to 5 on the five-level scale馒mán2nd tone, rising
  • Pitch chart of the neutral tone: short and light, with no contour of its own头touneutral tone, light and short

Grey pinyin is a neutral tone: say it short and light. More on the neutral tone

馒头 in a sentence

  1. 昨天我买了两个馒头。

    Zuótiān wǒ mǎi le liǎng ge mántou.

    Yesterday I bought two steamed buns.

    Sentence #841827 from Tatoeba

  2. 馒头和馍馍有区别吗？

    Mántou hé mómo yǒu qūbié ma?

    Is there a difference between mantou and momo?

    Sentence #10041955 from Tatoeba · translation adapted

  3. 我给你吃个馒头。

    Wǒ gěi nǐ chī ge mántou.

    Here, have a steamed bun.

    Sentence #11545854 from Tatoeba · translation adapted

How 馒头 is built

Each colour is one part of the character. Parts repeat across thousands of characters, so learning them makes new words easier. See all 214 in our radicals chart.

The character 馒 (mán) with each of its parts in a different colour
馒mán
  • 饣eat form of 食 · shíMeaning part
  • 曼long · mànSound part

饣 hints at the meaning (eat); 曼 (màn) hints at the sound. Compare it with mán.

The character 头 (tóu) with each of its parts in a different colour
头tousuffix for nouns
  • ⺀ice form of 冫 · bīng
  • 大big · dàMeaning part

Memory aidSimplified from 頭, where 页 meant “head” and 豆 (dòu) gave the sound.

How to write 馒头

馒 14 strokes · 头 5 strokes

Watch the order, then press Try writing it and draw each stroke in the grid. Each stroke is checked as you go.

馒头 (mántou) stroke order chart: each stroke of the characters in the order you write them
Stroke order chart for 馒头 (mántou). Red marks the next stroke, so you can copy it onto paper one step at a time.

Words related to 馒头

Words with 头

头tóu · head头发tóufa · hair on the head骨头gǔtou · bone石头shítou · stone木头mùtou · wood拳头quántou · fist舌头shétou · tongue口头kǒutóu · oral镜头jìngtóu · camera shot码头mǎtou · dock

More words: Food & Dining

辣椒làjiāo · chilli梨lí · pear粮食liángshi · grain零食língshí · between-meal nibbles食物shíwù · food蔬菜shūcài · vegetables桃táo · peach土豆tǔdòu · potato

FAQs

馒头 (mántou) means “steamed roll” or “steamed bun”. It is an HSK 5 word.
Say it mántou: mán with a 2nd tone, then tou with a neutral tone. Press Listen at the top of this page to hear it, or Slowly to hear each tone clearly.
In Traditional characters, used in Taiwan and Hong Kong, 馒头 is written 饅頭. The pronunciation is the same.
Add a Chinese (Simplified) pinyin keyboard to your phone or computer, type mantou with no tone marks or spaces, then choose 馒头 from the suggestions. Typing mantou into this dictionary’s search box finds it too.
馒头 is an HSK 5 word in the HSK 2.0 word lists.

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Sources: meaning and pinyin checked by a native Mandarin teacher against the official HSK lists. Extra meanings from CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0). Example sentences from Tatoeba (CC BY 2.0 FR). Character parts and stroke order from Make Me a Hanzi.