vegetable names in cantonese?

[Matty]

Hi I wanted to ask the forum for these translations of food names from English to Chinese... Thanks!

1) Potato (not sweet potato which is fan syu)
2) Garlic -- is it syun tao?
3) bean sprouts..
4) broccoli (american)

All right, thank you!
-Matty

[Maya]

1)syu chai
2)you may be right! syun tao
3)dau nga
4)ye choi fa (is it white in colour?)
(if the colour is in green , we call "sai laan fa")

[Dylan Sung]

syun tao refers mainly to the garlic bulb itself. Syn generally refers to the plant. If you have them planted together with spring onions (ch'ung) then you can tell them apart because spring onion has long cylindrically round "leaves" and garlic is long flat narrow green leaves.

Dyl.

[:-)]

From my colloquial Cantonese background, for Bean Sprouts we say:

"Nga Choi"

And at no extra charge, for Pea Sprouts we say:

"Dau Miu"

[Matty]

Thanks for the help!

But I had one more...how do you say 'Onion?'

Thanks again!!

[Dylan Sung]

yeung chung = onion

Dyl.

[Radagasty]

Maya wrote:

> 1)syu chai

Hmm... I would call a potato ho lan syu 荷蘭薯.

> 4)ye choi fa (is it white in colour?)

I would have said gaai laan fa 芥蘭花, but it's green, though, not white.

Sebastian.

[Roger]

Radagasty wrote:

> Maya wrote:
>
> > 1)syu chai
>
> Hmm... I would call a potato ho lan syu 荷蘭薯.
>
> > 4)ye choi fa (is it white in colour?)
>
> I would have said gaai laan fa 芥蘭花, but it's green, though,
> not white.
>
> Sebastian.

I've heard neither of those.

I concur with Maya
potato is 薯仔
this is the best name for it in conversational cantonese

荷蘭薯 is a variant, but usually not for conversational cantonese.
there are tons of names for potato in chinese, but these are either written, scientific, or names given by other chinese dialects.

as for american broccoli, it is 西蘭 or 西蘭花
芥蘭 is for chinese broccoli,
never used nor heard the term 芥蘭花 before, but i guess it's valid.
both the american and chinese varieties of broccoli are green.

and 椰菜花 (ye choi fa) IS white in colour, but it is not called broccoli, it is CAULIFLOWER.

[%sig%]

[Radagasty]

Roger wrote:

> and 椰菜花 (ye choi fa) IS white in colour, but it is not
> called broccoli, it is CAULIFLOWER.

Hmm... must be regional variation. I would have called a cauliflower baau choi fa 包菜花.

Sebastian.

[sfboy]

Radagasty wrote:

> Roger wrote:
>
> > and 椰菜花 (ye choi fa) IS white in colour, but it is not
> > called broccoli, it is CAULIFLOWER.
>
> Hmm... must be regional variation. I would have called a
> cauliflower baau choi fa 包菜花.
>
> Sebastian.

i have to agree with Roger. as for 包菜花, i don't think i've ever heard that one before. i did a search on google with the 包菜花 characters and got virtually no results. i used 椰菜花 in the search and found tons of pages using that term. just to let you know. same thing with 芥蘭花... it doesn't show up on the searches whereas 西蘭花 pops up.

[%sig%]