hek3 faan6喫飯吃饭
Jyutpinghek3 faan6
Yalehek faahn
Definition
To eat a meal or to have dinner.
colloquialfooddaily actions
How it's used
Cantonese speakers almost exclusively use 食飯 instead of 喫飯. While 喫飯 is understood as a literary or Northern Chinese term, using it in daily conversation sounds unnatural or overly formal. It functions as a general term for having a meal, not just specifically eating rice.
Related words
Common mistake
Do not use 喫飯 in spoken Cantonese, as it sounds like a Mandarin loanword or archaic language. Always use 食飯 to sound like a local.
Grammar color guide
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Verb
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Grammar guides
- Directional complementsThe small words added after a verb to show direction of movement, like up, down, out, in, and back. Common in everyday Cantonese.
- DemonstrativesThis and that with 呢 and 嗰, the personal pronouns, and how 哋 turns I, you, and he into we, you all, and they.
- Resultative complementsSticking a result word onto a verb to show how it turned out, like eat until full or look and find. A productive everyday pattern.
