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I'm a native Cantonese speaker, so in Cantonese I use 食 as a verb and hardly ever use 吃, but in Mandarin, 吃 replaces 食 as the verb "to eat". Because of that I'm not sure when to use 食 in a correct grammatical sense in Mandarin.

I'm 100% sure 食 isn't just one of those Cantonese-only words (like 哋 or 唔) and is used in Mandarin, so my question is: when do I use 吃 and when do I use 食 in Mandarin?

Thanks.

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    吃 is used as a verb, 食 is used as a noun.
    – user13501
    Apr 10, 2017 at 8:58
  • question answered by online dictionaries (which have many application examples) and sentence search engine jukuu, (食 is a noun as well as a verb)
    – user6065
    Apr 10, 2017 at 10:01
  • That's because the online dictionary reveals the written Chinese, or even classical Chinese form, here is the spoken Mandarin.
    – user13501
    Apr 10, 2017 at 13:34
  • ＂现代汉语词典＂：食（１）吃：～肉｜应多～蔬菜。（２）专指吃饭：～堂｜废寝忘～。（３）人吃的东西：肉～｜面～｜副～｜消～开胃｜丰衣足～。（４）（～儿）一般动物吃的东西；饲料：猪～｜鸡没～儿了｜鸟儿出来找～儿。（５）供食用或调味用的：～物｜～油｜～盐。（６）月球走到地球太阳之间遮蔽了太阳，或地球走到太阳月球之间遮蔽了月球时，人所看到的日月亏缺或完全不见的现象：日～｜月～。（esp. see (4) 食儿, spoken language）
    – user6065
    Apr 10, 2017 at 15:18
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    dictionaries (see e.g. comment #4) show that 食, whether used as verb or noun is a bound morpheme （黏着语素），as dictionaries also show 吃 can be considered a free morpheme (自由语素),cf. jukuu: 别吃太多派。我从不吃菠菜。我们吃猪肉时蘸苹果汁。
    – user6065
    Apr 11, 2017 at 14:13

5 Answers 5

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In Mandarin, 食 is almost exclusively used as part of a two-syllable word like 饮食，食用，食品 and so on. It's basically never used as the verb "eat" in normal conversation, though it might show up in that sense in a very formal or written context.
If you always use 吃 outside of fixed two-syllable words, you'll be on the safe side.

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吃

  1. Send things into the mouth to swallow, or rely on something to live: ～饭。～药。～斋。
  2. destroy (used for military, chess): ～掉敌人一个连。
  3. Suction: ～烟。
  4. feel: ～惊。～紧。～一堑，长（zhǎng ）一智。
  5. suffer: ～官司。
  6. Support and support: ～不消。
  7. depth of the hull into the water: ～水深浅。
  8. was: ～那厮砍了一刀。
  9. Talking stuttering: 口～。

食

  1. 吃：～肉。～欲。
  2. eat something: ～品。粮～。零～。丰衣足～。
  3. Salary: “君子谋道不谋～”。
  4. The sun and the moon is missing or completely disappeared：月～
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  • No one really says 吃烟... a lot of your references are pretty obscure, and tangible at best.
    – Qwerp-Derp
    May 10, 2017 at 12:05
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http://dict.variants.moe.edu.tw/yitia/fra/fra04581.htm 食 is not only for none if you say it in different sound

i would use 食 in formal situation like 食用 eatable (used in article more) 吃 can be used in daily lives

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食 in Classical Chinese has (at least) 3 different meaning 1. To feed another person or animal (In this case the pronouncing ion is ㄙˋ sì）

  1. To eat (also can use 饌 in Classical Chinese)

3 food

It's awesome that Cantonese preserved the classical way of using 食

In Mandarin, I think only the second meaning "to eat" is replaced with 吃 in daily conversation (in literature writing may or may not be different) So if 食 is used as the noun FOOD then it's still 食 But when it describes eating, like 好吃， then it's 吃。 I'd say that in most daily conversation, mandarin speakers use only 吃 for the verb to eat, ate, eating… etc. 吃飯、吃飽、好吃、大吃特吃 But in writing, in order to be elegent, a writer may choose to use 食 instead of 吃， for example 「禁止飲食」。Same thing with the word 飲。

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吃，口语化，日常用语多些；食，文雅一点。
这是从另外一个视野看这个问题。

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  • 1) Answers should be in English unless specified otherwise, 2) this answer doesn't really answer the question.
    – Qwerp-Derp
    May 10, 2017 at 12:07

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