菜cài
vegetables; order, dish; food. 11 strokes, radical 艹, first met in HSK 1.
How to write 菜
Strokes 1–3 write 艹, then strokes 4–11 write 采.
Free, with no account: the app draws each stroke, then you write it and it says which stroke went wrong.
Print a 米字格 practice sheet for 菜 · the stroke-order rules
What 菜 is made of
艹 (cǎo, grass) and 采 (cǎi, to collect).
艹 carries the meaning — plant — and 采 carries the sound.
Words that use 菜
| 菜 | vegetables 炒好端上桌让人吃的青绿食物或者肉类 我要四个。阿姨，您这里还卖新鲜青菜吗？I'll take four. Auntie, do you still sell fresh green vegetables here? Siyuan Teahouse, lesson 5, 赵阿姨的水果摊 |
| 菜单 | menu 写着可以点的菜名的单子 聚餐时大家翻阅菜单。At the group meal, everyone looked over the menu. Lesson 7, 去参观 · 谨言慎行与辨微格物 · Discernment, Daily Judgment & Nuance |
| 白菜 | Chinese cabbage 一种绿白色的青菜，可以炒来吃 李爷爷送来几棵新鲜的白菜给我们。Grandpa Li brought us some fresh Chinese cabbage from his garden. Lesson 109, 温暖邻里 · 城市生活与新家 · Urban Life & The New Home |
| 蔬菜 | vegetables 指供食用的草本植物 基地培育出新鲜的蔬菜。The base cultivated fresh vegetables. Lesson 485, 耕墨抚灾 · 文心雅韵与躬行敏求 · Refined Arts & Resourceful Deeds |
Characters that share the sound part 采
Written with the same phonetic, so their readings tend to rhyme with each other.
More characters with the radical 艹
All 30 of them, and what the radical means, on the 艹 radical page.