Meaning of 快餐
Definitions from CC-CEDICT.
- fast food
- snack
- quick meal
How to use 快餐
快餐 covers fast food chains like burger places and also quick set meals such as a boxed lunch from a local shop. It is often used with 吃 (chī) or as a modifier, as in 快餐店 (kuàicāndiàn) fast food restaurant. Example: 我们中午吃快餐吧。(Wǒmen zhōngwǔ chī kuàicān ba.) Let's have fast food for lunch.
快 (kuài) means fast and 餐 (cān) means meal, so 快餐 is literally a fast meal. You already know 餐 from 早餐 (zǎocān) breakfast, 午餐 (wǔcān) lunch and 晚餐 (wǎncān) dinner, so just add speed.
Common mistake: Learners sometimes write 餐 with the wrong top part or confuse it with 菜 (cài), which means a dish or vegetable, not a meal. Also keep 快 in the fourth tone, kuài, and do not let 餐 drift to a third tone; it is first tone, cān.
快餐 in example sentences
Real sentences from the Tatoeba project, with pinyin and English.
Stroke order for each character
Open a character for its meaning, components and more words.
快 kuài · rapid · 7 strokes
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
餐 cān · meal · 16 strokes
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
- 13
- 14
- 15
- 16
Related words
Words that share a character with 快餐.
| 快乐 | kuàilè | happy; joyful |
| 晚餐 | wǎncān | evening meal; dinner |
| 早餐 | zǎocān | breakfast |
| 午餐 | wǔcān | lunch; luncheon |
| 快要 | kuàiyào | nearly at the point of (doing sth); about to (do sth) |
| 快点儿 | kuài diǎnr | erhua variant of 快點|快点[kuai4 dian3] |
| 凉快 | liángkuai | pleasantly cool (weather etc); to cool oneself; to cool off |
| 中餐 | zhōngcān | lunch; Chinese meal; Chinese food |
| 西餐 | xīcān | Western-style food |
| 赶快 | gǎnkuài | quickly; at once |
| 快速 | kuàisù | fast; high-speed; rapid |
| 加快 | jiākuài | to accelerate; to speed up; to hasten |
Questions about 快餐
What does 快餐 mean?
快餐 (kuàicān) means "fast food; snack" and is used as a noun.
How do you write 快餐?
快餐 is made of 2 characters: 快 (7 strokes), 餐 (16 strokes). That is 23 strokes in total.
Is 快餐 an HSK word?
Yes. 快餐 is on the HSK 2 vocabulary list of the HSK 3.0 standard.
Is 快餐 only Western fast food like McDonald's?
No. In China 快餐 also means cheap, quick Chinese meals, such as rice with a few dishes served fast. Many small shops call themselves 中式快餐 (zhōngshì kuàicān), Chinese style fast food.
Can 快餐 be used figuratively?
Yes. People use 快餐 to describe things that are quick and shallow, as in 快餐文化 (kuàicān wénhuà), fast food culture, meaning entertainment or content that is consumed quickly without much depth.