The meaning of 混口饭吃 -- word? phrase? idiom?

[Mu Lan]

My Chinese textbook has a writing exercise where you're supposed to respond to a question, and include a given list of words in your response. One of the required items is 混口饭吃, but it's not in my vocab list, and I couldn't find the definition anywhere online. My best guess is that it's an idiom, but I don't fully understand what "confused/mixed mouth food eat" means. Can anyone help me?

[jofa234]

My best idea would be to eat a variety of food. Or an Omnivore.

[HashiriKata]

It's an idiomatic/ colloquial expression and it means to "to earn a living/ to scrape a living/ to get by".

[chrix]

that's funny, I just came across this expression and couldn't find it in any dictionary either Dictionaries shouldn't only include chengyu, but also colloquial phrases such as this one...

[HashiriKata]

I just came across this expression and couldn't find it in any dictionary either

If you start with 混饭, you'll get to 混口饭吃 quite easily.

[chrix]

nope, not in my trusted 21st century Chinese-English dictionary either

But the MOE dictionary has the following

1. 不以認真的態度和正當的手段來取得維持生活的條件。

2. 為維持生活而工作。

[jishuyuxin]

Usually,it's a modest manner of some people to explain their work conditions to someone else,mesns"just so so".I agree Hashirikata's explaination. In chinese,"混口饭吃"just an idiomatic expression.It means "to earn a living.

[mischa]

let me ,a native speaker ,illustrate some details to you

usually, 混口饭吃can be used in 2 situations

1. 张：嘿，老李，听说你当老师了？hey,lee,i heard that you are a teacher now, right?

李：唉，还不是为了混口饭吃。yeah, just for life.

混口饭吃here means work just to mantain the basic life in case of starving,usually reluctrant.

2. 邻居在做饭，我今天恰好不想做饭，于是跑到邻居家说：哥们，我来混口饭吃！实在懒得做了。

my neighborhood is cooking and i don't want to cook today, so i go to his house and say : hi, buddy, can i share your meal? you know i am lazy and don' want to cook today.

混口饭吃here means i don't want to cook today and want a close friend to share his meal with me .but you can only use it with a very close friend.

you may be fired if you say :老板（boss), 我来混口饭吃。

but you may notice that 混饭吃 has a totally different meaning from 混口饭吃

混饭吃means someone if someone joins a team but hardly contribute something valuable.

and if you want to express you're unpleasant, you can say 他根本就是在混饭吃！or 他根本就是混饭吃的（人）。 but never say it to him dirrectly,for it's not that impolite and you may offend him

Edited December 2, 2009 at 10:36 PM by imron
'you' is not spelt 'u'. 'are' is not spelt 'r'.

[frankqiu]

混口饭吃， similar to doing something(maybe you don't really like) just to earn some money,

or on some occasions using it to be modest. 比如：有人说，你生意做得不错啊。被问者表示谦虚的话，就可能回答说：混口饭吃而已。