to eat
HSK level
吃 is written with 6 strokes. The animation replays automatically.
吃 (chī) is the everyday Chinese verb 'to eat' — used for food and, idiomatically, for many things English speakers wouldn't think of as 'eating.'
The literal use is straightforward: 吃饭 (eat a meal), 吃苹果 (eat an apple), 吃药 (take medicine, literally 'eat medicine'). What surprises English speakers is how often 吃 appears in idioms: 吃苦 (eat bitterness = endure hardship), 吃醋 (eat vinegar = be jealous in love), 吃惊 (eat shock = be startled). 吃 is also the default verb for 'have a meal' — 你吃了吗？ ('have you eaten?'
) is a common casual greeting, especially among older speakers, similar to 'how are you?' in English. Drinks use 喝 (hē) instead of 吃, but soup is 喝汤 (drink soup), not 吃汤 — a common beginner mistake.
吃 appears in 4 Fluentide podcast episodes at natural native speed — each with the full Chinese script, pinyin, and line-by-line English translation.
你吃了吗？
Nǐ chī le ma?
Have you eaten?
spoken
我想吃中国菜。
Wǒ xiǎng chī Zhōngguó cài.
I want to eat Chinese food.
neutral
这个苹果很好吃。
Zhège píngguǒ hěn hǎochī.
This apple is really tasty.
spoken
我们一起去吃饭吧。
Wǒmen yīqǐ qù chī fàn ba.
Let's go eat together.
spoken
喝 is 'to drink' — used for water, tea, coffee, and crucially soup (喝汤). Beginners often say 吃汤 (eat soup), which is wrong. Liquids drink, solids eat — and soup counts as liquid in Chinese.
吹 ('to blow') looks similar — same 口 radical on the left — but means to blow air. Easy to mix up by sight, never by meaning.
Acquire it by listening
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