{"id":13,"date":"2013-11-18T21:00:16","date_gmt":"2013-11-18T13:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/writtenchinese.com\/?p=13"},"modified":"2022-06-04T12:02:19","modified_gmt":"2022-06-04T04:02:19","slug":"menus-a-delicious-way-to-study-chinese","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.writtenchinese.com\/menus-a-delicious-way-to-study-chinese\/","title":{"rendered":"Menus: A Delicious Way to Study Chinese"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

One of the first ways that I began to learn Chinese characters was by encountering them in restaurant menus. Many restaurants in China include English translations on their menus, but there are still plenty of places where this is not the case. The game is to go, select something randomly, and when the food comes, you have the opportunity to learn some new characters! While there is quite a bit of \u201crisk\u201d involved in this process, it was a triumph for me when I first began to recognize the characters for noodles (\u9762<\/a>, mi\u00e0n), rice (\u996d<\/a>, f\u00e0n), and chicken (\u9e21\u8089<\/a>, j\u012b r\u00f2u). I also learned when to avoid marinated duck head (\u5364\u6c34\u9e2d\u5934<\/a>, l\u01d4 shu\u01d0 y\u0101 t\u00f3u) and chicken feet (\u51e4\u722a<\/a>, f\u00e8ng zh\u01ceo).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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For those of you not living in China, it may be a little bit more difficult to locate Chinese menus, but here are a few you can look at with pictures: Menu 1<\/a> , Menu 2<\/a> , Menu 3<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

My feelings towards menus without English translations have been a little different to Bethany\u2019s \u2018risk-taker\u2019 attitude. Generally, doing an \u2018ip dip\u2019 style of choosing dishes randomly (as Bethany suggests above) has never been successful for me (often resulting in wobbly tofu and mushrooms, neither of which I eat) and always made me feel reluctant to try again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I recently went to a hot pot restaurant with my other half whose spoken and written Chinese far exceeds mine. I really enjoy hot pot, but the menu is almost entirely in Chinese. Although the \u670d\u52a1\u5458<\/a>
was extremely helpful and tried to suggest some dishes for us, it\u2019s not the same as seeing something on the menu that you\u2019ve had before and thinking \u2018that\u2019s what I want!\u2019 Although my \u9ebb\u8fa3\u706b\u9505<\/a> experience was pretty good, I was still curious to know what was really<\/em> on the menu.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Method 1: Using an OCR tool to read Menus<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

An OCR is a tool that can scan Chinese characters and give you an instant translation. Pretty cool, right? Using the tool to scan menus is just one of the many ways the tool is both useful and essential for Chinese learners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just tap the second icon from the right and hover over the text you want to scan. As you can see in the image above, the OCR will instantly give you a translation of the characters. However, if you want to \u2018look up\u2019 the characters, just tap on the \u2018Look it up\u2019 button at the bottom and you\u2019ll go to the second screen. You can also scan a photo or picture from your phone’s gallery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From here you can do all manner of things including the following:<\/p>\n\n\n\n