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便饭 (biàn fàn) — simple meal; home cooking

Definition

便饭 literally 'convenient meal' — a casual, simple home-cooked meal, as opposed to a formal banquet (宴席). Often used to downplay hospitality, e.g. "just a simple meal" when hosting guests.

noun
simple mealhome cooking
Measure word · 顿

Examples

  • 便饭。
    Wǒ men suí biàn chī diǎn biàn fàn ba.
    Let's just have a simple meal.
  • 便饭，。
    Tā qǐng wǒ chī le yí dùn biàn fàn, suī rán jiǎn dān dàn hěn wēn xīn.
    He treated me to a simple meal — plain but very warm.
  • 便饭。
    Mā ma zuò de biàn fàn bǐ wài miàn de hǎo chī duō le.
    Mom's home cooking is much better than eating out.

Origin

Compound word
构词法gòucífǎ
偏正piānzhèngModifier + head

The first part narrows down the second: it says what kind of thing the head is.

便biànsimple
饭fànmeal

The first part means simple or convenient and the second means meal, so together they mean a simple home-cooked meal.

Characters in this word

Two or more meaningful parts placed together so that their meanings combine into a new one.

便 pairs 亻 (person) with 更 (to change), showing a person changing posture to become comfortable.

Open 便 →

Most characters — around four in five — are built this way: one part hints at the meaning, the other at the pronunciation.

This origin belongs to the traditional form 飯; 饭 is its simplified writing.

Meaning part形符xíngfú
食食shífood
Sound part声符shēngfú
反
反fǎn飯fàn
Same sound today

The traditional form 飯 combines 食 (food) with 反 for the sound; the simplified 饭 is a shorthand, so its parts are not the historical form.

Open 饭 →
Appears in
HSK 3.0 Level 7-9

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