Good to eat

You can order food and name it now. Here's the next thing — saying it's good. It's a tiny phrase, but it's the one that earns a smile across the table, and it's built almost entirely from characters you already have.

The trick is addition again

Watch this. You already know 吃chī from the last post. Put 好hǎo in front of it:

That's it. 好hǎo + 吃chī = "good to eat" = delicious. Chinese says exactly what it means, and you can read it straight off.

And 好hǎo is a character you've already seen — it's the 好hǎo in 你好nǐ hǎo from the very first page of this blog. Learn it once and it pays you back constantly.

The words

Notice 好喝hǎohē works the same way: 好hǎo + 喝hē. Food is 好吃hǎochī, drinks are 好喝hǎohē — one pattern, two words.

Read them cold

Cover the pinyin, say each out loud, then tap:

好hǎo   好吃hǎochī   好喝hǎohē   很hěn

Turn it up

Stick 很hěn in front to mean very, and you've got a real compliment:

Remember 茶chá? Now you can say something about it:

And when something is really good, wrap it in 太...了tài...le. You don't have to master the grammar — just recognize the shape, mouth it, and mean it:

Next up: 谢谢xièxie and a couple of words for being polite — the grease that makes every one of these exchanges go smoothly.