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Fruit, 水果shuǐ guǒ, is a crucial dietary element that can bring rich vitamins, coarse fibers, and other trace elements to nourish the human body and benefit human’s health. Moderate intake of fruits can also help you keep a balanced diet daily. Because it can replace partial intake of fat and carbohydrates, it is helpful when people want to keep fit.
Climates and geographical features vary in different corners of the world, which will lead to various fruits choices in different places. What kind of fruits can you have among those hundreds of varieties when living and learning in China?
China is a country with vast land and different climates. There are different regional fruits according to local climate and soil quality.
Tropical and subtropical fruits such as coconut, mango, pineapple, longan, lychee, grapefruit, banana, etc., are only distributed in southern China, for the lower temperature of north China cannot provide enough heat to grow these fruits. The southern province of Yunnan is famous as the Kingdom of variant tropical and subtropical fruits throughout the whole year. In Yunnan, fruits can also be cooked as a dish. The pickled spicy fruit is one of the dishes that you must try when learning Mandarin in Kunming, Yunnan.
Citrus, loquat, and other subtropical fruits can tolerate light coldness. However, temperatures around –9°C or even colder can still cause severe freezing damage to these fruits, so these fruits are generally only distributed in the southern part of the Qinling-Huaihe area.
The temperate zone north of the Qinling-Huaihe area is rich in temperate fruits such as apples, pears, persimmons, and grapes.
It is challenging to grow temperate fruits like apples in the northern areas of the Great Wall and northern Xinjiang area because of the extreme coldness on winter days.
In recent years, methods such as grafting and hybridization are applied more frequently; benefited from these techniques, apples have expanded in the further northern area of China currently.
Fruits produced in China are always sold at a reasonable price. There are many reasons why fruits are not expensive in China:
Besides, you can always find the wholesale market to buy cheap fruit in great amounts when living in China. Convenient transportation and logistics service also make it easier to buy fruits at a good price in China.
A supermarket, fruit stores, a wholesale market for fruits, or fruit stands at the agricultural products trading market are all places that you can find good quality fruits.
The differences among these places for buying fruits mainly fall on the price, the quality, and the kinds of fruits you can have as options.
In China, you can also buy fruits by making orders on a food delivery App. Not only can fruits you purchase through the service provided by a food delivery app, but meals and other groceries can be bought through a mobile app. You will greatly benefit from the convenience of different useful apps on mobile when living in China. These smart apps will help you reach a different aspect of your daily life, so your transition here will also be smoother and easier.
Some fruits are prevalent to see in China and also very welcomed by Chinese people.
Watermelons, apples, grapes, pears, mandarins, bananas, strawberries, pineapples, lychees, longan, cherries, mangos, papayas, grapefruits, and peaches are all popular fruits in China.
Some of the fruits are even more popular than others for they can be used as cooking ingredients of Chinese cuisine. Many popular Chinese dishes are cooked with fruits, such as the pineapple used in the dish of sour-sweet spareribs, the papaya salad, candied sweet banana/apple, fried bananas, and spicy pickled fruits in Yunnan and Guangxi provinces. With the unique intelligence of Chinese culinary philosophy, the fruits are fully interpreted in Chinese cuisine.
Now it’s time for us to learn some general words about fruits in Chinese!
Taking above mentioned popular fruits in China as instances.
Watermelons 西瓜 xī guā
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Apple 苹果 píng guǒ
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Grapes 葡萄 pú táo
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Pears 梨 lí
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Mandarins 桔子 jú zǐ
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Orange 橙子 chéng zǐ
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Bananas 香蕉 xiāng jiāo
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Strawberries 草莓 cǎo méi
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Pineapples 菠萝 bō luó
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Lychees 荔枝 lì zhī
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Longan 龙眼 lóng yǎn
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Cherries 樱桃 yīng táo
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Mangos 芒果 máng guǒ
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Papayas 木瓜 mù guā
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Grapefruits 柚子 yòu zǐ
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Peaches 桃子 táo zǐ
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Passion Fruit 百香果 bǎi xiāng guǒ
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Dragon Fruit 火龙果 huǒ lóng guǒ
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Blueberry 蓝莓 lán méi
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Cranberry 蔓越莓 màn yuè méi
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Raspberry 树莓 shù méi
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Cactus Pear/Tuna 仙人掌果 xiān rén zhǎng guǒ
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Cherimoya/guanabana 番荔枝 fān lì zhī
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Mamoncillo 蜜果/西班牙青柠 mì guǒ /xī bān yá qīng níng
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Cashew 腰果 yāo guǒ
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Uvilla 灯笼果 dēng lóng guǒ
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Lima 青柠 qīng níng
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Carambola 杨桃 yáng táo
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Durian 榴莲 liú lián
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kiwi 猕猴桃 mí hóu táo
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Besides learning the Chinese vocabulary of fruits, you can also try learning how to say vegetables in Chinese and how to say meat in Chinese at the same time.
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zhè gè duō shǎo qián ?/zhè gè zěn me mài ?
这个多少钱?/这个怎么卖?
zhè gè …duō shǎo qián yī gōng jīn ?
这个…多少钱一公斤?
néng bú néng biàn yí yī diǎn ?
Sir/Madam, please offer me a cheaper price!
lǎo bǎn ,zài biàn yí yī diǎn !
老板,再便宜一点!
Sour-sweet spareribs (using pineapples )
táng cù gū lū ròu 糖醋咕噜肉
Stirred-fried Mango Beef
máng guǒ niú ròu 芒果牛肉
Fried Bananas
zhà xiāng jiāo 炸香蕉
爱玉果ài yù guǒ, Ficus pumila var. awkeotsang
It is a kind of fruit popular in Taiwan. Local people prefer calling it ài-gio̍k. It is a good material for making ice jelly in the summertime.
Some fruits are delicious foods and can also be used as Chinese medicine, which can play a perfect role in preventing diseases and managing healthiness.
For example,
Raspberry 树莓
Hawthorn 山楂
Loquat 枇杷
Mulberry 桑葚
The above fruits can all be applied as an ingredient of Chinese medicine.
It must be the 奶枣 nǎi zǎo, a kind of sweet that can be described as Tuffey covered Chinese date with an Almond stuffed inside!
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