# brunch



## yuechu

大家好！

I was looking up the word "brunch" in the Wordreference dictionary today, and noticed that it's called 早午饭. Can it also be called 晚早饭? (It's a meal between breakfast and lunch)

Also, is this concept purely Western (or European or Anglo-Saxon), or is this something Chinese people also know of?
Thanks!


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## tigery6

I guess you can say 早午饭，still it's from English, but I've never heard of 晚早饭. Anyway we use neither of these two phrases. I think it's western concpet.


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## SuperXW

晚早饭 cannot be understood. Even the translation of 早午饭 is unfamiliar to many Chinese.
Brunch is a Western concept.
I always thought brunch means to combine breakfast and lunch as one...It's an additional meal??


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## ovaltine888

SuperXW said:


> I always thought brunch means to combine breakfast and lunch as one...It's an additional meal??


应该是早饭和午饭并一顿
一般是睡了懒觉错过早饭时间的的人发明的词吧


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## retrogradedwithwind

古代中国普遍一日两餐的时候，上午9～11点吃朝食，下午3～7点（3点到天黑）吃晡食。我个人觉得brunch这个概念和朝食跟对应的，都是一天两餐嘛。


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## yuechu

SuperXW said:


> I always thought brunch means to combine breakfast and lunch as one...It's an additional meal??


Oh, I just meant that it's eaten at a time between the two. I suppose that it's technically a combination of the two, but if I have a light brunch, I might have a light (late) lunch afterwards too. (or a light breakfast if I wake up early + brunch)

I don't have brunch very often. It's usually a meal served to guests. I prefer just a normal breakfast and lunch actually.

Thank you all for your replies!


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## brofeelgood

Just curious... were you under the impression:
(早)午饭 = (Early) lunch
(晚)早饭 = (Late) breakfast

It's actually 早饭+午饭 = 早午饭... kind of an elliipsis.


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## yuechu

Oh, I was actually! That makes sense now.

Thanks, Brofeelgood!


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## SimonTsai

Hello, @yuechu. In my experience it's always called '早午餐' and never '早午飯'.

I did a Google search of '早午飯' and found 546,000 hits, and a search of '早午餐' which yields more than 17,000,000, which should show that '早午餐' is absolutely the commoner of the two. As to the whys and wherefores, I would say that brunch is sterotypically introduced from Euro-America, and that rice ('飯') is strongly associated with the Chinese culture.

Here is a picture that we would imagine when it comes to brunch. No rice at all:


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## yuechu

Hi Simon,
That's interesting! I hadn't thought of it from that point of view... (that the character 饭 is used for talking about meals in Chinese since rice is so commonly eaten in many East Asian countries). Thanks for letting me know which one was more common!

The Wordreference dictionary has 早午饭 instead of 早午餐 (when you search for "brunch"). Perhaps it needs to be corrected! What do you think? (I imagine (according to the Google results that Simon found when he searched for the two terms) that 早午餐 is also more common than 早午饭 in Mainland and Hong Kong too?)


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## SimonTsai

Yes, perhaps. But I would also love to know what people in the mainland think.


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## ovaltine888

I don't see much difference between 早餐 and 早饭, nor the nuance of eastern and western styles.

Google shows 早餐 is more common than 早饭 simply because 早餐 is somewhat more formal and you can find it more often in written text.

早饭 is a rather colliquial expression but not at all less common in use.


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## T.D

早中饭 is my choice. Probably because I'm from Hangzhou and we say 中饭 instead of 午饭. In that sense, I guess 早午饭 is also good.


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## hx1997

yuechu said:


> The Wordreference dictionary has 早午饭 instead of 早午餐 (when you search for "brunch"). Perhaps it needs to be corrected! What do you think?



Well, it seems talking about 饭 alone is off topic. But still I'd like to point out the 早午餐/早午饭 difference may be one between 北方 and 南方, at least traditionally. Simon is from Taiwan, which obviously is in 南方. In my experience (again), 饭 usually (or traditionally) means "cooked rice" in 南方, although the distinction is disappearing, because of cultural communication between regions and the spread of 普通话. And I'm not alone in this observation. From one of the posts in that first link:



> 在北方大部分地区，“吃饭”指“一切的进食”（eating）。
> 任意时间吃任意主食（米饭、饺子、米粉、面条等等）都可称为“吃饭”。
> 
> 在南方大部分地区，“吃饭”仅指“主食为大米饭的午餐和晚餐”（have a rice meal）。
> 吃其他主食（饺子、米粉、面条等等）可以当早餐、宵夜、零食、下午茶，都不算“吃饭”。
> 在长辈传统观念里，正餐只能吃米饭，吃其他主食会被诟病“不好好吃饭”。


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## ovaltine888

hx1997 said:


> Well, it seems talking about 饭 alone is off topic. But still I'd like to point out the 早午餐/早午饭 difference may be one between 北方 and 南方, at least traditionally. Simon is from Taiwan, which obviously is in 南方. In my experience (again), 饭 usually (or traditionally) means "cooked rice" in 南方, although the distinction is disappearing, because of cultural communication between regions and the spread of 普通话. And I'm not alone in this observation. From one of the posts in that first link:


我依然并不能同意啊。

首先“吃饭”本身就是宽泛的概念，通常指的是“一日三餐”——早饭、午饭、晚饭，并不存在南北差异。

否则我习惯早饭吃面包牛奶的，难道不算吃“早饭”了？



> 在长辈传统观念里，正餐只能吃米饭，吃其他主食会被诟病“不好好吃饭”。


“不好好吃饭”指的是不好好吃“正餐”（比如爱吃零食），而非不好好吃“米饭”。


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## SimonTsai

hx1997 said:


> Well, it seems talking about 饭 alone is off topic.


I don't know what happened. I think discussion about '飯' versus '餐' is on-topic but...


ovaltine888 said:


> 否则我习惯早饭吃面包牛奶的，难道不算吃 “早饭” 了？


No, bread and milk doesn't count. Here are two threads about the difference: 'What do you have for breakfast/lunch/dinner' and '早/午/晚飯 vs 早/午/晚餐'. (I shall revive the latter when I have some time.)


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## hx1997

ovaltine888 said:


> 否则我习惯早饭吃面包牛奶的，难道不算吃“早饭”了？


有的地方确实不算啊，所以我才说有差异。有的地方，“早饭”是特指白米饭的。

其实就我自己而言，我也不会把面包牛奶叫做早饭，我只会叫早餐。

Edit: 想了想，可能这也不是南北差异，也许只是某些地方差异。

还有说吃饭指一日三餐，这个其实网上就有不少人发帖说去了南方或者北方才知道他们“吃饭”所指不同的，应该不是个例。


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## ovaltine888

就我而言，餐就是饭的正式书面语。

"餐"听上去像是宾馆服务生说的话
"先生，自助早餐在二楼。"
"先生，午餐你想吃点什么？"
"先生，您有预订我们的烛光晚餐吗？"

在宾馆自助餐厅
我会和同行人这样说
"你看，这儿的早饭还挺丰盛的，选择很多。多吃点管饱，中午饭就不用吃了，省一顿饭钱。"

——成功绕回brunch了😂


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## hx1997

我能理解这种“餐”比“饭”听起来正式的感觉，但其实比如粤语里面，“早餐”就是日常说法，并不正式，所以粤语人士说普通话时可能会把这个习惯带入。如果是粤语人士来翻译brunch，那几乎唯一的可能就是翻译成“早午餐”。


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## ovaltine888

hx1997 said:


> 还有说吃饭指一日三餐，这个其实网上就有不少人发帖说去了南方或者北方才知道他们“吃饭”所指不同的，应该不是个例。


我看了你给的知乎链接，我的观点是"吃饭"="用餐"这个概念是全国通用的，在非正式场合，很少人会说"用餐"，大多都说"吃饭"吧。

至于谈及主食选择的时候，我们也都会问你要吃(米)饭？还是吃面(条)？

这两个吃饭的语境是不同的，含义也是不同的。


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## hx1997

如果吃饭=用餐全国通用，为什么还会有人误会呢？我觉得这说明大家在语境不足时，对吃饭这个词的默认理解是有差异的。语境清楚了，误会自然也就消除了。

Edit: 我觉得我们又开始跑题了，不说了🤣


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## SimonTsai

T.D said:


> 早中饭 is my choice. Probably because I'm from Hangzhou and we say 中饭 instead of 午饭.


'中飯' is possible here in Taiwan too, but it's not very popular. In fact, both '早中飯' and '早午飯' work. They are simply unusual to my Taiwanese ear.


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## AquisM

yuechu said:


> 早午餐 is also more common than 早午饭 in Mainland and Hong Kong too?


To be honest, I don't think I've seen the word "brunch" translated into Chinese before in Hong Kong. We're quite happy to just say "brunch" even when we're speaking Cantonese, because it's a Western concept.

I would also assume 早午餐 is more common than 早午饭 in Hong Kong at least in part due to Cantonese influence. We don't usually use the word 饭 in Cantonese to refer to meals of the day.


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## Youngfun

Let's make it simple and translate brunch as 西式早茶


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## SuperXW

Youngfun said:


> Let's make it simple and translate brunch as 西式早茶


完全get不到本意啊……


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## dojibear

"Brunch" is a combined meal, in place of two meals (breakfast and lunch). It usually contains breakfast foods, but it is a larger meal than breakfast. It is usually at a restaurant, not at home. Restaurants typically serve it from 11 am to 3 pm, on Sunday.


Youngfun said:


> Let's make it simple and translate brunch as 西式早茶


In the US, "afternoon tea" isn't a meal. It simply doesn't exist. That's only in England.


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## SimonTsai

早茶 doesn't refer to afternoon tea. It's said to be a Cantonese breakfast. (Click on the text and see posts #3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 to know more about 早茶, which shouldn't ever be confused with 下午茶.)


dojibear said:


> Restaurants typically serve it from 11 am to 3 pm, on Sunday.


Here is a reading challenge for you:

說實話，我以為華人在用餐的時間上，沒那麼講究，至少我父親是這樣。八點半出門，九點半從市場回來，開始洗菜炒菜，開始煮湯。十點出頭一聲令下，開飯，那是我起床後第一餐。下午一兩點，他又開火。第一餐吃剩的 ──── 近幾年好些，他以前常煮太多 ──── 繼續吃；另外炒一盤菜。我問午餐不是吃過了嗎，他說那是早餐；如果我在第一餐就問，他就說管它是哪一餐，有得吃最重要，想吃就吃，餓了就吃，吃飯比吃藥好上百倍之類。久而久之，我也就不問。

到底幾點才算是早午餐，我以為沒嚴格的定義。社區附近賣早午餐的 ，我印象中下午還在營業。但如果我下午兩點去吃，我會說那是早午餐嗎？不一定會。我可能說那是午餐。如果我沒吃早餐而上午十一點半吃過午餐但沒吃飽，或吃飽了但看到了，想嚐鮮或嘴饞，下午兩點推開店門走進去叫一份，我可能會說我吃兩次午餐或者午餐加點心。


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## chocoke

指brunch时，一般会说“早午餐”。“早午饭”用得比较少。


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## Youngfun

我个人认为brunch跟广式早茶有点类似，就是上午去吃但是时间不太早（可能9点10点以后？），坐下来悠闲地慢慢得喝茶吃各种点心，通常会迟到中午，意境跟brunch有那么一点点像。

另外，brunch这么洋（bi）气（ge）的（gao）概念还是用“早午餐’好，“饭”太接地气了。


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