man4 fo2文火
Jyutpingman4 fo2
Yalemàhn fó
Definition
Low flame; a gentle or small fire used in cooking.
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How it's used
文火 is a technical culinary term specifically describing the intensity of heat rather than the cooking method itself. It is almost exclusively used in formal recipes or when giving precise cooking instructions to someone, as everyday speech often prefers the more descriptive 細火.
Examples
You need to simmer this soup over a low flame.
Related words
Common mistake
Do not confuse this with the Mandarin usage which can sometimes appear in literary contexts; in daily Hong Kong life, people will almost always say 細火 instead of 文火 when talking to family or friends in the kitchen.
Grammar color guide
Noun
Verb
Adjective
Adverb
Pronoun
Classifier
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Grammar guides
- In 30 secondsThe whole language at a glance. No tenses, no plurals, six tones, sentence particles. Read this before you dive into any specific topic.
- ParticlesSentence particles add tone, emotion, and nuance. Learn the most common particles in Cantonese and how to use them.
- Possession (嘅)How to say my, your, and his, and how to link a describing word to a noun, all with the little word 嘅 (ge3).
