HSK 1 · Food

菜 cài “dish” in Chinese

Same in Traditional

What 菜 means

  1. dish, vegetable
  2. greens
  3. dish (of food)
  4. (of one’s skills etc) weak
  5. poor
More meanings from CC-CEDICT
  • (coll.) (one’s) type

How to say 菜

  • Pitch chart of the fourth tone: falls from high to low, 5 to 1 on the five-level scale菜cài4th tone, falling

菜 in a sentence

  1. 你们有什么菜？

    Nǐmen yǒu shénme cài?

    What kind of food do you have?

    Sentence #422951 from Tatoeba

  2. 这个菜是怎么做的？

    Zhè ge cài shì zěnme zuò de?

    How is this dish made?

    Sentence #3700708 from Tatoeba

  3. 今天我妈妈做了很多菜。

    Jīntiān wǒ māma zuò le hěn duō cài.

    My mum has made many dishes today.

    Sentence #10961179 from Tatoeba

How 菜 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 菜 (cài) with each of its parts in a different colour
菜càivegetable; greens
  • 艹grass form of 艸 · cǎoMeaning part
  • 采to collect · cǎiSound part

艹 hints at the meaning (grass); 采 (cǎi) hints at the sound. Compare it with cài.

Memory aidPlants 艹 that you pick 采: vegetables, a dish.

How to write 菜

菜 11 strokes

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

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

Words related to 菜

Words with 菜

菜单càidān · menu蔬菜shūcài · vegetables

More words: Food & Drink

吃chī · to eat喝hē · to drink米饭mǐfàn · cooked rice水果shuǐguǒ · fruit苹果píngguǒ · apple水shuǐ · water咸xián · salted盐yán · salt

FAQs

菜 (cài) means “dish, vegetable” or “greens”. It is an HSK 1 word, so it is one of the words learners meet early.
Say it cài: cài with a 4th tone. Press Listen at the top of this page to hear it, or Slowly to hear each tone clearly.
Yes. 菜 is written the same way in Simplified and Traditional characters.
Add a Chinese (Simplified) pinyin keyboard to your phone or computer, type cai with no tone marks or spaces, then choose 菜 from the suggestions. Typing cai into this dictionary’s search box finds it too.
菜 is an HSK 1 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.