4.3 Ordering Food — Epoché
What you will be able to do Order a meal in a restaurant, using the verb that means to order dishes. Say that you do not want it spicy, and ask whether a dish is. Say that something tastes good, which in Chinese is one word rather than two. Ask for the bill, in the two forms every restaurant hears. Prerequisites : 3.4, which gives the food, and 4.2. Ordering is four fixed lines and a list of nouns from 3.4, which makes it the first conversation you can carry out from beginning to end. It is also one where a beginner is easily understood, because the context does half the work. Dialogue A A small restaurant at lunchtime. Two friends sit down, and one of them does the ordering. Guest 请给我菜单。 [1] — Could I have the menu, please? Waiter 这是你的菜单。 [2] — Here's your menu. Guest 服务生，我要点菜。 [3] — Excuse me, I'd like to order. Waiter 你要什么？ [4] — What would you like? Guest 我要这个汤。 [5] 我不喜欢吃辣的。 [6] — I'll have this soup. I don't like spicy food. Waiter 不是很辣。 [7] 你们想喝什么？ [8] — It isn't very spicy. What would you like to drink? Guest 我想要一杯茶。 [9] — A cup of tea, please. The guest calls the waiter over and adds the verb for ordering, literally to select dishes: the first character here means to pick out from a list, as in 点歌 , to request a song. With the dish the guest adds a condition, which is a sensible thing to say early: in some regions many dishes come spicy unless you say otherwise. The waiter's reply about the soup puts the negative in front of the whole phrase, not-very-spicy. The last question, for drinks, keeps the question word in the object slot, where the answer then puts the tea. The waiter says 你 and 你们 throughout. Lesson 4.1 gave 您 as the respectful word for a customer, and in a smarter restaurant you would hear it; in a small place at lunchtime the plain word is normal and not rude. Dialogue B The end of the meal, the same two friends. One of them calls for the bill. A 好吃吗？ [10] — Was it good? B 好好吃！ [11] — Really good! A 服务员，买单。 [12] — Excuse me, the bill, please. B 多少钱？ [13] — How much is it? A 太贵了。 [14] — It's too expensive. B 我请客。 [15] — It's my treat. A 谢谢！ [16] — Thanks! The middle lines are worth learning together. A calls the waiter 服务员 here, where the guest in Dialogue A said 服务生 ; both are in use, and the note on 服务生 below says where each is commoner. The bill is asked for by calling the waiter and adding two characters meaning buy-list, and it is not rude. The price is asked with three characters, how-many money. A, looking at the bill, does not read the price out but grumbles about it: the complaint that it is too expensive belongs to the next lesson but appears here because it is a common thing to say after a price; between friends at a restaurant table it is a grumble, not an opening for bargaining, and the friend answers it by offering to pay. Saying It Another Way Six lines from the corpus, covering the end of the meal. Chinese English When 买单。 [17] The bill, please. the plain request, said to any waiter 我要买单！ [18] I'd like the bill, please! the same with a verb in front: I want the bill 服务员，买单。 [12] Excuse me, the bill, please. calling the waiter first, which is normal and not rude 好吃吗？ [10] Is it good? asking whether something tastes good 很好吃。 [19] It's delicious. the answer, and the standard compliment 好好吃！ [11] Really good! a stronger version of the same compliment How This Differs from English The table often orders together. Dishes are usually put in the middle and shared, so the waiter asks what the table wants rather than going round the guests in turn, and one person often does the ordering for everybody, as in the first dialogue. The verb for ordering is specific. The compound means to select dishes and is used of nothing else. The general verb for wanting works too and is what a beginner falls back on; both are in the dialogues. Measure words are the rule. As lesson 2.8 showed, most Chinese nouns cannot be counted directly: between the number and the noun goes a classifier, chosen by the shape or the kind of the thing. 我要一本书。 [20] — I'd like a book — has the one for bound things in that slot, and an order in a restaurant has the same shape with a different measure word. English does this mainly for uncountables — two sheets of paper, a loaf of bread — while Chinese does it for nearly every noun, including things English counts freely; a few, such as the words for a year and a day in lesson 2.8, take the number directly. The general one will carry you through the first months and is understood everywhere, but a waiter will use the specific ones, so expect to hear them even while you are not yet producing them. Nothing is negotiated in a restaurant. The price on the menu is the price, tipping is not usual in mainland China, and one person often pays for everybody, as the friend offers to in the second dialogue. Tasting good is one word. English needs a verb and an adjective; Chinese has a single compound meaning good-to-eat, and a parallel one meaning good-to-drink for beverages. There is also a third, from 3.4, meaning that something smells good. New words Word Meaning Notes 点菜 zh diǎncài （ 點菜 ） diǎncài verb · to order (food) Note for English speakers Literally to select dishes: the first character here means to pick out from a list, as in 点歌 , to request a song. The compound is used only of ordering food. 服务生，我要点菜。 Excuse me, I'd like to order. 服务生 zh fúwùshēng （ 服務生 ） fúwùshēng noun · waiter Note for English speakers A variant of the word in 3.2, commoner in Taiwan and Hong Kong; on the mainland the word from 3.2 is the usual one. Both are used to call across a room. 好吃 zh hǎochī adjective · tasty, good to eat Note for English speakers One word where English needs two. The parallel word for drinks ends in the verb for drinking. 好吃吗？ Was it good? 很好吃。 It's delicious. 辣的 zh làde noun phrase · spicy food, the spicy one Note for English speakers The particle turns the adjective into a noun: the spicy one. 我不喜欢吃辣的。 I don't like spicy food. 买单 zh mǎidān （ 買單 ） mǎidān