# Flavours of Ice Cream



## 地獄の森_jigoku_no_mori

I would really like to know how to say the flavours of Ice Cream in Chinese, could anyone help me?


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## zena168

冰淇淋的味道
Bing chi ling duh wei dao.
I think that's the best way I can spell it.
Which means "Flavor of the ice cream."
If you're trying to ask a question, you have to be more specific.


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## 地獄の森_jigoku_no_mori

lol you're right.

What are the flavours, like chocolate, vanilla, etc... thanks for replying though!


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## zena168

冰淇淋有什麼味道?
Bing chi ling yoi sher ma wei dao?

That’s like saying, “What is (are) the flavor(s) of the ice cream?
There’s no plural marker in this case…(Chinese don't really use plural markers.)
Again, that’s the best I can phonetically spell the words.


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## zena168

“ , like chocolate, vanilla, etc...”
“-,像巧克力,香草等等…”
“-shiung chao ker li, shiung tsao dun dun.”


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## vince

Chinese:

Ice cream: 雪糕 (syut gou) (literally: snow-pastry)
Flavor: 味道 (mei dou)
Chocolate: 朱古力 (zyu gou lik)
Vanilla: 雲呢拿 (wa nei naa)
Strawberry: 士多啤梨 (si do be lei)

Note: I have confirmed these with a Chinese native speaker and these are indeed correct. Words like 冰淇淋 would be inappropriate for use in conversational Chinese.


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## zena168

vince said:
			
		

> Chinese:
> 
> Ice cream: 雪糕 (syut gou) (literally: snow-pastry)
> Flavor: 味道 (mei dou)
> Chocolate: 朱古力 (zyu gou lik)
> Vanilla: 雲呢拿 (wa nei naa)
> Strawberry: 士多啤梨 (si do be lei)
> 
> Note: I have confirmed these with a Chinese native speaker and these are indeed correct. Words like 冰淇淋 would be inappropriate for use in conversational Chinese.


 
I think it's a difference of Mainland China and the Republic. But your strawberry wasn't pronounced in Chinese. I can’t be sure about the vanilla, but aren’t most of the flavors listed above “Chinese trying to imitate the English sounding words” and not the actual “native words” for them? It’s just Chinese trying to spell "strawberry" and I have mainland friends who don’t refer to strawberry like that. And "Syut Gou" is more like ice cream sandwich, not ice cream from how I learned the language. 冰淇淋was what was used in the Republic in primary conversational usage to represent all types of ice cream.
Of course, it can be just difference among the regions.


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## vince

Actually, the difference is not a dialectal difference (e.g. between Taiwanese Mandarin and Standard Mandarin as you suggest), but between the Cantonese and Mandarin languages. I was trying to point out the original poster's fallacy in asking for the "Chinese" translation, which doesn't make sense because there is almost never such thing as a single Chinese translation. He should be asking for the _Mandarin_ translation.

冰淇淋 is Mandarin for ice cream, while 雪糕 is Cantonese for ice cream.

Do you speak Taiwanese (Minnan) by any chance? I would be interested in knowing whether Taiwanese uses its own word for ice cream or uses 冰淇淋.


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## 地獄の森_jigoku_no_mori

I'm asking for the flavours in Mandarin, as they would be said in China. I don't think anyone has given me that yet.


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## midismilex

地獄の森_jigoku_no_mori said:
			
		

> I'm asking for the flavours in Mandarin, as they would be said in China. *I don't think anyone has given me that yet*.


 
Brilliant!!


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## MingRaymond

vince said:
			
		

> Actually, the difference is not a dialectal difference (e.g. between Taiwanese Mandarin and Standard Mandarin as you suggest), but between the Cantonese and Mandarin languages. I was trying to point out the original poster's fallacy in asking for the "Chinese" translation, which doesn't make sense because there is almost never such thing as a single Chinese translation. He should be asking for the _Mandarin_ translation.
> 
> 冰淇淋 is Mandarin for ice cream, while 雪糕 is Cantonese for ice cream.
> 
> Do you speak Taiwanese (Minnan) by any chance? I would be interested in knowing whether Taiwanese uses its own word for ice cream or uses 冰淇淋.


 
雪糕 is also used in Shanghainese.


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## zena168

Sorry, I don’t speak Minnan but I did pick up the Mandarin from Taiwan.  But I'm not Taiwanese (it's a technical term).


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## charlie2

地獄の森_jigoku_no_mori said:
			
		

> I'm asking for the flavours in Mandarin, as they would be said in China. I don't think anyone has given me that yet.


Hi,
(1)first thing first, examples of some flavours of ice cream:
(a) 巧克力 (qiao3 ke4 li4 ) = chocolate
(b) 香草 (xiang1 cao 3) = vanilla  (in the present context)
(c) 草莓 (cao3 mei2 ) = strawberry
(d) 抹茶 (mo3 cha2 ) = Japanese green tea
The first three are obviously classics.
I have brought in (d) just for you : 抹茶 is definitely Japanese. It is now quite accepted in a Chinese menu. Sometimes it is called 綠茶 (lu4 cha2) literally ->green tea.

(2)I read somewhere that you are learning Mandarin. I therefore suppose that you might wish to know a bit more about 味道 as given above to mean flavour of ice cream.
You see“味道”can mean "taste" as well as "flavour" .
e.g. 這雪糕味道很好 。(=This ice cream tastes good.) The fact that it tastes good has nothing to do with which flavour it is.
I believe you can hear and read more and more the noun 口味 (kou3 wei4) for "flavour(s) of ice cream".
e.g. X 雪糕店最近又有新口味, 我們一定要試試。 (= X ice-cream parlour is offering a new flavour. We've got to try it.)
A word of warning though, 口味 in a different context means different things.

(3)I don't know why. After reading all the above posts, I decided to check if there is any difference between 雪糕 and 冰淇淋。
My understanding is 冰淇淋 was "born" first and is losing its colour to 雪糕 as time goes by. I used to bite my lips so as not to laugh when someone said 雪糕 in Mandarin, but not now.
I found on the internet a report on the standard of ice-cream in China apparently issued by the Beijing food hygiene authority.
To my surprise, at least officially, the terms 雪糕 and 冰淇淋 coexist. They are similar but are differentiated by the quantities of certain ingredients.

I hope I have not bored you. 
By the way, there are a lot more good ones than the four examples.


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## 地獄の森_jigoku_no_mori

Certainly not, that was very helpful!


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## charlie2

De rien.


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## CrazyIvan

> Do you speak Taiwanese (Minnan) by any chance? I would be interested in knowing whether Taiwanese uses its own word for ice cream or uses 冰淇淋


 
We only say 冰 in Minnan language. For example, Li mei gia shia mi bing? (你要吃什麼冰?/what kind of icecream do you want?) We are other expression like 枝仔冰(gie a bing)/剉冰 (tsua bing) to discribe the ice we have in summer.

By the way, I think people in Taiwan will say 口味(kou wei) for flavor rather than 味道. 味道 usually refers to sweet, sour, bitter, spicy, etc. Charlie2 has explained it very well. 

To my understanding, 雪糕 is icecrem on the stick. however, 冰淇淋 is something either on cone or in cup. 

I am wondering if the difference in expression has something to do with the shape. While most of 糕 in chinese food is in square shape, maybe that is why we come with two different transaltion(?)


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## vince

Interesting, in this way, Taiwanese Minnan is like French in that ice and icecream are the same word

OT: Did you write 要 for "mei" only because "mei" means "want"? Because mei doesn't look etymologically related to Mandarin's "yao" or Cantonese "yiu" which use that character. i.e. "mei" written as 要 is kind of like a Japanese kun'yomi reading.

Does yiu/yao exist in Minnan outside of literary language?


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## CrazyIvan

vince said:
			
		

> Interesting, in this way, Taiwanese Minnan is like French in that ice and icecream are the same word
> 
> OT: Did you write 要 for "mei" only because "mei" means "want"? Because mei doesn't look etymologically related to Mandarin's "yao" or Cantonese "yiu" which use that character. i.e. "mei" written as 要 is kind of like a Japanese kun'yomi reading.
> 
> Does yiu/yao exist in Minnan outside of literary language?


 
Li mei gia sha mi bing=你欲愛吃什麼冰/(what will you like your icecream to be), so actually, there is no 要/yao/yiu in the sentence. I have to admit that I should spell like "me-ei" in case that there are actually two words here.

But that is why it become interesting. I keep thinking but did not find any "yao" in Taiwanese. I think our 要 is connected to 愛 or 欲愛, really similiar to "I would like to...." structure in English.


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## Dimitri Lee

vince said:
			
		

> Interesting, in this way, Taiwanese Minnan is like French in that ice and icecream are the same word
> 
> OT: Did you write 要 for "mei" only because "mei" means "want"? Because mei doesn't look etymologically related to Mandarin's "yao" or Cantonese "yiu" which use that character. i.e. "mei" written as 要 is kind of like a Japanese kun'yomi reading.
> 
> Does yiu/yao exist in Minnan outside of literary language?



To me, there's no such thing as Ice cream in Tawanese, I'll speak mandarin if I am specifically refering to ice cream. "bing" in Taiwanese can mean almost anything that is related to ice, edible or not.

"mei" presents a feeling(wish) to do something,aproximately "want to",which must be (as I can think of)followed by a verb,so I think there's nothing wrong with CrazyIvon's original sentence. In fact, "你欲愛吃什麼冰" sounds awkward to me. And I'll pronounce the word "mei" more like the bilabial stop consonant in Russian. Maybe it's a dialectal difference.


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## tjworld

冰淇淋的味道(bing qi lin de wei dao), Yes, We also call it “雪糕”，But “雪糕”usually indicate the flavor is nutural milk. And it is diffierent form another kind call "冰棍"，which made of juice of some food, and it look like ice-cake with a bar.  I don't I make the explanation clearly for you.


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## tjworld

冰淇淋的味道(bing qi lin de wei dao), Yes, We also call it “雪糕”，But “雪糕”usually indicate the flavor is nutural milk. And it is diffierent form another kind call "冰棍"，which made of juice of some food, and it look like ice-cake with a bar.  I don't I make the explanation clearly for you.


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## zena168

tjworld said:
			
		

> 冰淇淋的味道(bing qi lin de wei dao), Yes, We also call it “雪糕”，But “雪糕”usually indicate the flavor is nutural milk. And it is diffierent form another kind call "冰棍"，which made of juice of some food, and it look like ice-cake with a bar. I don't I make the explanation clearly for you.


I have heard of people using "冰棍" to mean popsicles, fruit bars, and or juice bars if that's what you mean.
Just a friendly reminder, you guys should probably just answer what Jigoku Mori asks: Mainland Mandarin version.
I understand we're all trying to help but everyone's writing is even confusing me.


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## tjworld

Hi,Zena168,
Thank you for your reply, I hope my word will be helpful to everyone here.And I am glad to share anything I can do here. 

Blessings!


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