Dragon Boat Festival: Asking about ingredients inside a zongzi

💬 Add 嗎 to the end of any statement to turn it into a yes/no question. You can keep the same frame and swap the food: 有花生嗎？ "are there peanuts?".

💬 鹹 (xián) means "salty" and sits in front of the food it describes. Another example is 鹹粽 "savory zongzi".

💬 顆 (kē) is the counting word for small round things like yolks, eggs and candies. In Taiwan people also use it for zongzi: 一顆粽子.

💬 To say something is inside something else, use place + 有 + item, with no word for "there is" needed. Another example is 裡面有香菇 "there are mushrooms inside".

💬 Ending with 呢 means "and what about...?" and reuses the question you just asked, so you don't have to repeat it. 那 (nà) at the start works like "so" or "then", not "that".

🇹🇼 素 (sù) means vegetarian, often in the Buddhist style with no meat and sometimes no garlic or onion. Taiwan has many vegetarians, so meatless options are easy to find.

💬 有 is made negative only with 沒, never 不. The sentence also skips the subject because it's obvious which item you mean.

💬 Chinese has no single word for "yes". You answer by repeating the verb from the question, so 要熱的嗎？ gets 要 for yes and 不要 for no.

🇹🇼 我要 sounds blunt in English, but it's the normal, polite-enough way to order at Taiwanese stalls.

💬 To order, say 我要 + number + counting word + item. Swap in a quantity like 兩顆 (liǎng kē) to get two, and use 兩, not 二, for counting things.

💬 塊 (kuài) is the spoken word for dollars. Written prices use 元 (yuán), but people say 塊.

💬 的 after an adjective turns it into "the ___ one", so 熱的 means "a hot one". You can swap the adjective: 冷的 "a cold one".

🇹🇼 麻煩你 literally means "troubling you". Taiwanese use it as a warm "please" when someone does a small task for you, and it sounds softer than 請.

🇹🇼 Small stalls usually take cash, so have coins and small bills ready during the festival rush.

🇹🇼 端午節 falls on the 5th day of the 5th lunar month and is a public holiday in Taiwan. Along with boat races, people eat 粽子 "sticky rice dumplings".

🇹🇼 Some older people feel 端午節 is a memorial day rather than a happy one, so they wish 端午節安康 "peaceful and healthy Dragon Boat Festival" instead. 端午節快樂 is still widely used and perfectly fine.