买菜 (mǎicài): to buy groceries

Meanings

1 to buy groceries
2 to do the food shopping

Characters

买

vegetable / food ingredient

Examples

妈妈每天早上去菜市场买菜。

Māma měitiān zǎoshang qù càishìchǎng mǎi cài.

Mom goes to the market every morning to buy groceries.

今天我帮你买菜。

Jīntiān wǒ bāng nǐ mǎi cài.

Today I'll do the grocery shopping for you.

Tips

usage

菜 here means 'food ingredients' broadly — vegetables, meat, fish, tofu — not just greens. Separable verb: 买了菜, 买不到菜. In urban China 买菜 is increasingly done via apps like 美团买菜 and 多多买菜 rather than at a traditional 菜市场.