Food and drink in Esperanto: words, meals, phrases

Food is manĝaĵo and a drink is trinkaĵo, built from the verbs manĝi "to eat" and trinki "to drink" plus the suffix -aĵ- "a concrete thing". The daily meals are matenmanĝo "breakfast", tagmanĝo "lunch" and vespermanĝo "dinner". Most fruit, vegetable and drink words are international roots with the noun ending -o, so many look familiar. Pronunciation guides split words into syllables, with the stressed syllable in capitals.

#Meals and eating

The meal names are compounds: mateno "morning" + manĝo "meal". Change the ending to -i for verbs: Mi matenmanĝas je la sepa – "I have breakfast at seven." Lesson 5 of the free course teaches about twenty of these words.

#Fruit

Compounds are common: vinbero is "wine-berry" (vino + bero) and akvomelono "water-melon". For the tree, say pomarbo "apple tree".

#Vegetables

Terpomo is literally "earth-apple" (tero + pomo).

#Meat, fish, dairy and bread

Bovaĵo is bovo "cattle" + -aĵ-, and porkaĵo comes from porko "pig". ReVo defines viando as the muscle part of animal flesh, not counting fish, which stays fiŝo.

#Drinks

#Tastes and spices

The noun is gusto "taste" and the verb gusti "to taste of something": La kafo gustas amare – "The coffee tastes bitter." ReVo glosses acida as sharp like vinegar or lemon.

#Word building with food words

A few suffixes turn one root into a family of words. See word building, suffixes and prefixes.

PMEG adds that -uj- can also name the plant that bears a fruit (pomujo "apple tree"), but many now prefer pomarbo. To order in a restoracio, see travel phrases.

#Phrases at the table

What you eat or drink is the object, so it takes -n: Mi manĝas pomon, Mi trinkas teon. See the accusative.

A vegan is a vegano. After kun "with" and sen "without" there is no -n, because they are prepositions. For toasts such as Je via sano!, see wishes and celebrations.

#Quantities with da

The word da joins a measure to the substance it measures, like English "of".

PMEG gives these rules:

• No -n after da. The measure takes it: Mi trinkas glason da akvo – "I drink a glass of water."
• No da after plain numbers. Say Mi havas cent pomojn, but Mi havas centon da pomoj "I have a hundred apples", because cento is a noun.
• No da before la, mia or ĝi. Use de or el: Ni manĝis iom de la pano – "We ate some of the bread."
• Ask with kiom da: Kiom da sukero vi volas? – "How much sugar do you want?"

Glaso da vino is a glass full of wine, while vinglaso is a glass made for wine.

#Common questions

#How do you say "food" in Esperanto?

Manĝaĵo is food, the things you eat; manĝo is a meal.

#How do you say breakfast, lunch and dinner in Esperanto?

Matenmanĝo, tagmanĝo and vespermanĝo; as verbs, matenmanĝi, tagmanĝi and vespermanĝi.

#How do you say "I am hungry" or "I am thirsty" in Esperanto?

Mi malsatas or Mi estas malsata for hungry, and Mi soifas for thirsty. When you have eaten enough, say Mi estas sata.

#How do you say "enjoy your meal" in Esperanto?

Bonan apetiton! ReVo describes it as a wish said before a meal.

#Sources

• ReVo: manĝi (meal names, intermanĝeto), trinki, apetito, sata, soifi, gusti, acida, spica, viando, bovaĵo, porkaĵo, kulero, vegetarano
• PMEG: AĴ, EJ, IST, UJ, Da – bazaj reguloj, Da – detalaj reguloj