糖 (táng) · sugar

Measure Word

一块糖 kuài

Meanings

1 sugar
2 candy; sweets

About the ingredient

调料 Seasonings

The general word for sugar, white, brown or rock. Chinese cooks also add it to savoury dishes, and Shanghai cooking mixes it into soy sauce, so braises there come out slightly sweet.

Used in 15 dishes

Characters

糖

táng

sugar; candy

Contains the rice radical 米, since sugar was historically made from sugarcane and grains.

Examples

HSK 1

小朋友都喜欢吃糖。

Xiǎopéngyou dōu xǐhuan chī táng.

Little kids all like eating candy.

HSK 3

你要加糖吗？

Nǐ yào jiā táng ma?

Do you want to add sugar?

HSK 3

这个太甜了，糖放多了。

Zhège tài tián le, táng fàng duō le.

This is too sweet, too much sugar was added.

Tips

culture

糖葫芦 - candied hawthorn berries on a stick - is a beloved traditional Chinese street snack, especially popular in winter in northern China.

Components

radical

米 mǐ

rice; grain

Left-side rice radical - the indexing component, marking the food/grain origin of sugar. Early Chinese sweeteners were grain-based syrups (麦芽糖, malt sugar from barley) long before cane sugar reached the country, so any sweetener was filed under 米. Same family: 粉 (powder), 粥 (porridge), 粽 (rice dumpling).

phonetic

唐 táng

Tang dynasty; vast

Right-side 唐 supplies the sound táng - a clean phonetic match with no tone shift. No semantic link to the Tang dynasty, but a useful mnemonic since cane-sugar refining did spread across China during Tang-era trade with Southeast Asia. Same phonetic group: 塘 (pond), 搪 (evade), 膛 (chest cavity).