How do you use 味道?

[Hsuesheng]

大家好！It's my first time posting on these forums. I couldn't find any threads dealing with this question so I thought I'd create a new thread.

My question is: how do you use 味道?

From what I've understood, the word has the meaning of both taste and smell. So how do you distinguish between the two?

Example: 这个牛肉面的味道是真正的。Does the 味道 in this sentence refer to taste or smell, or is it irrelevant?

How would you say, "These beef noodles smell good," and "This apple tastes good"?

Thank you in advance!

[skylee]

Consider 好香/很香 for smell good, and 好吃 or 好味道 for taste good.

[大肚男]

Also, from what I understand it greatly depends on context.

[yialanliu]

Consider 好香/很香 for smell good, and 好吃 or 好味道 for taste good.

Not a fan of this usage if you are still a novice in Chinese.

味道很香/好香 is the full version for smells good. By getting rid of 味道 you get rid of smell. So you end up with implied word smell which is okay, but not good for a learning environment when unneededly made it more complicated.

[roddy]

味道很香/好香 is the full version for smells good. By getting rid of 味道 you get rid of smell. So you end up with implied word smell which is okay, but not good for a learning environment when unneededly made it more complicated.

Fairly sure if I understood that I'd disagree. Perfectly normal to lean into your bowl of noodles and say 好香啊, nothing to do with your level of Chinese.

[wedge]

My impression was that 好香 mainly means "smells good" but also implies "tastes good" or "tastes fresh". Is that not right?

[yonglin]

My impression was that 好香 mainly means "smells good" but also implies "tastes good" or "tastes fresh". Is that not right?

As far as I'm aware, you can use 香 to describe things you wouldn't usually eat, e.g., flowers. In this case 香 probably refers to smell exclusively. Also, perfume is 香水. There is also a famous 香港.

[jbradfor]

No doubt most of this disagreement is due to the fact that our sense of taste and sense of small are closely intertwined. Much of what we call "taste" we actually detect through our nose, as I'm sure everyone has noticed if you've eaten things when you have a stuffed nose.

That said, to the OP, may I suggest jukuu as well? It's not perfect, but it should give you some idea.

[yialanliu]

Fairly sure if I understood that I'd disagree. Perfectly normal to lean into your bowl of noodles and say 好香啊, nothing to do with your level of Chinese

It does because you are implying 味道. The phrase is not wrong just like "Do your homework" is a complete sentence but beggining english people would be where's the subject because the "you" is implied. Only saying dropping words is not something I recommend for beginners as dropping wrong words can lead to misunderstanding so that's why I say implying words by omission is something I'd learn later on.

香 is for smells predominantly. It doesn't matter about biology because this is more of a cultural thing. It's about usage and very rarely maybe 1% do you ever use 香 for taste. You normally say it before you taste it because in China you flatter the food prior to picking up your chopsticks. Thus what you mean is it smells good.

For savory it's "xian" don't know how to write it actually haha.

[roddy]

Ok, now I'm sure I disagree.

[yialanliu]

It'd be good to say which part you disagree...or you disagree with everything?

Then prove it or shut up.

[jkhsu]

For savory it's "xian" don't know how to write it actually haha.

I think you mean "鲜".

[xiaocai]

味道很香/好香 is the full version for smells good. By getting rid of 味道 you get rid of smell. So you end up with implied word smell which is okay, but not good for a learning environment when unneededly made it more complicated.

I don't agree with either. It is perfectly fine to say 菜很香 or 饭很香 regardless of the level of your Chinese without causing any ambiguity that I can think of. In fact, I think it is actually more natural to say 菜很香 instead 菜的味道很香. The latter just sounds redundant, and a bit weird.

[yialanliu]

I don't agree with either. It is perfectly fine to say 菜很香 or 饭很香 regardless of the level of your Chinese without causing any ambiguity that I can think of. In fact, I think it is actually more natural to say 菜很香 instead 菜的味道很香. The latter just sounds redundant, and a bit weird.

I see your point and agree with the redundancy. Makes sense when you put it that way. I'd still caution against too much omission but this one seems okay.

It'd just be nice for people to explain it rather than just disagree especially since this is a learning environment and there is no shame in being wrong. Too bad the admin won't care to explain anything and just down post anything that challenges them while upposting random posts about I disagree and it's okay?

[Kenny同志]

More than weird, I am afraid 菜的味道很香 is wrong - 香 refers to the quality of smelling good or pleasant whereas 味道(taste, flavour) how something tastes.

On a side note, the single character 味 can refer to a smell, for example, 一股香味(a pleasant smell).

[skylee]

It'd just be nice for people to explain it rather than just disagree especially since this is a learning environment and there is no shame in being wrong. Too bad the admin won't care to explain anything and just down post anything that challenges them while upposting random posts about I disagree and it's okay?

Probably people gave you minuses because you told people to shut up. AFAIK, each member can give any one post one minus only. So -2 means that at least two people found your post not helpful.

I would think that there is no need for people to agree on everything, and there is no need for people to explain everything, either.

[tooironic]

I also disagree with @yialanliu. 好香啊 is a very common expression said before eating, almost fixed I'd say.

My dictionary also lists 氣道 and 臭味 as translations for the noun sense of smell - the former being neutral, while the latter referring to bad smells, stink or fumes.

However I can't say I've heard them in conversation before. It may be possible that Chinese has no real practical word for the noun of smell, which makes sense since Chinese quite often prefers to use verbs over nouns to describe things. Can anyone clarify this?

[yialanliu]

Probably people gave you minuses because you told people to shut up. AFAIK, each member can give any one post one minus only. So -2 means that at least two people found your post not helpful.

I would think that there is no need for people to agree on everything, and there is no need for people to explain everything, either.

Ok, now I'm sure I disagree.

[jkhsu]

I thought that "你做的菜好香" meant the dishes you make/made tastes good. It doesn't necessarily mean they have to smell good. Here's a sentence taken from a description of 臭豆腐 on baike.

"但都是闻起来臭，吃起来香，这是臭豆腐的特点。"

The "香" in this case is referring to the taste because it smells "臭" for sure.

[yialanliu]

"但都是闻起来臭，吃起来香，这是臭豆腐的特点。"

That's more of a phrase and part of the 1% that I mentioned earlier.

The reason is because of what it tries to get in terms of meaning.

Stinky tofu smells bad but when you eat it the smell becomes good is the idea behind this which is why it's used this way.

闻起来臭，吃起来香 by itself is a phrase that now has become everyday for many foods like durian as well.

However, outside of this phrase, you won't see it in normal usage. Even when you use 吃起来香, fluent people will add the omitted words for it to make sense rather than view it as on its own.