(táng) - sugar, sweets in Mandarin
tángTraditional: 糖
Translation
sugar, sweets
Word origin
A phono-semantic character: the rice radical 米 gives the sense of a grain or refined foodstuff, and 唐 (táng) supplies the sound.
- Origin
- phono-semantic
- Root
- 米 (rice radical) + 唐 (táng, phonetic)
Stroke order
糖
Examples
。
No sugar in my coffee please.
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Children all like eating sweets.
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Too much sugar went into this cake.
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The doctor said he must not eat sugar.
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There is a box of sweets on the table.
糖 (táng) covers both halves of an English distinction. It is sugar, the white stuff in the bowl, and it is sweets, the things in the paper wrapper. Context does the sorting: 咖啡里放糖 is sugar, 给孩子一块糖 is a sweet.
Measure words follow the sense. Sweets come in 块 or 颗 (一块糖, one sweet), packets in 盒 or 包. Sugar as a substance takes no counter at all, just 一点糖 or 很多糖.
The trap is the verb. English "eat sugar" sounds odd, so learners reach for something fancier, but 吃糖 is the ordinary Chinese for both eating sweets and, in a medical context, consuming sugar. If you want to be unambiguous about the granulated kind, say 白糖 (white sugar) or 加糖 (add sugar); for candy specifically, 糖果 removes all doubt.
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糖: worksheet, infographic and listicle
Free printable study downloads for the Mandarin word "糖" (sugar, sweets): a worksheet with the answer key built in, an infographic, and a sentence listicle. Open any one to view, print or save.
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Start your free weekThis word is part of lesson 52.