HSK 5 · Food

蔬菜 shūcài “vegetables” in Chinese

Same in Traditional

What 蔬菜 means

  1. vegetables

How to say 蔬菜

  • Pitch chart of the first tone: stays high and level, 5 to 5 on the five-level scale蔬shū1st tone, high and level
  • Pitch chart of the fourth tone: falls from high to low, 5 to 1 on the five-level scale菜cài4th tone, falling

蔬菜 in a sentence

  1. 你应该吃更多蔬菜。

    Nǐ yīnggāi chī gèng duō shūcài.

    You should eat more vegetables.

    Sentence #1138984 from Tatoeba

  2. 我喜欢有很多蔬菜的汤。

    Wǒ xǐhuan yǒu hěn duō shūcài de tāng.

    I like soups with lots of vegetables.

    Sentence #2887887 from Tatoeba

  3. 蔬菜越来越贵了。

    Shūcài yuèláiyuè guì le.

    Vegetables are getting more and more expensive.

    Sentence #10206414 from Tatoeba · translation adapted

How 蔬菜 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 蔬 (shū) with each of its parts in a different colour
蔬shūvegetables
  • 艹grass form of 艸 · cǎoMeaning part
  • 疏to neglect · shūSound part

艹 hints at the meaning (grass); 疏 (shū) hints at the sound. Compare it with shū.

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 蔬菜

蔬 15 strokes · 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.

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

Words related to 蔬菜

Words with 菜

菜cài · dish菜单càidān · menu

More words: Food & Dining

粮食liángshi · grain零食língshí · between-meal nibbles馒头mántou · steamed roll食物shíwù · food桃táo · peach土豆tǔdòu · potato胃口wèikǒu · appetite香肠xiāngcháng · sausage

FAQs

蔬菜 (shūcài) means “vegetables”. It is an HSK 5 word.
Say it shūcài: shū with a 1st tone, then cài with a 4th tone. Press Listen at the top of this page to hear it, or Slowly to hear each tone clearly.
Yes. 蔬菜 is written the same way in Simplified and Traditional characters.
Add a Chinese (Simplified) pinyin keyboard to your phone or computer, type shucai with no tone marks or spaces, then choose 蔬菜 from the suggestions. Typing shucai into this dictionary’s search box finds it too.
蔬菜 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.