食べ物 – Food in Japanese

Food in Japanese is 食たべ物もの. This word comes from the Japanese word to eat, 食べる. A direct translation of 食べ物 could be stuff for eating. There are other more specific ways though to talk about food in Japanese.

Meals in Japanese

The word for meal in Japanese is 食事しょくじ. However, there is another word, ご飯はん which people say when talking about meals. ご飯 actually means rice but has taken on the meaning of meals in general also.

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You can also say 飯めし which means the same thing as ご飯. But, this word is more informal and not as refined sounding as ご飯. It is also more masculine sounding so would be more commonly used among male friends.

Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner

There are a few ways to say the meals of the day in Japanese. in order to say the name of a meal you would first take the three times of day below:

• 朝あさ – Morning
• 昼ひる – Afternoon
• 晩ばん – Evening

Then add them in front of ご飯 to get:

• 朝ご飯 – Breakfast
• 昼ご飯 – Lunch
• 晩ご飯 – Dinner

Foodstuffs and Food Products

There are other Japanese words for food when you want to talk about them as products. You could use either 食料しょくりょう or 食品しょくひん. First, 食料 refers to all kinds of food or food in general. You would not use it generally though if you were saying you wanted to eat something, instead you would say 食べ物 or ご飯. 食品 is referring to food products or even groceries. 

Resources

• Food – JapanDict