柿子椒

[TomRodgers62]

柿子椒 - bell peppers.
我需要红椒 - I need red bell peppers. 

I'm wondering when I translate this into a full sentence and change the "red" and "柿子" gets taken out when it seems like it's still necessary.  Why do they just keep "椒"?  It could be any type of red pepper still, I feel?  Am I wrong?  Would someone understand "红椒" to mean red bell pepper specifically? 

Thanks!

[Guest123]

Not sure about peppers, but in chinese you can often see this kind of "abbreviations".

Especially when the context is clear and both spaeker and listener know what it is all about. For ex.； 足球比赛 becomes 球赛， or 汽车、自行车 both can become just 车。

[Demonic_Duck]

Interesting. Bell peppers seem to be called either 柿子椒 or 甜椒. 红椒 could indeed mean any type of red pepper, and similarly 青椒 could be any type of green pepper (most commonly used for very mildly-spiced, large chili peppers). If you want to be specific, you'd need to say 红柿子椒/红甜椒 or 绿柿子椒/绿甜椒.

 

^ The above is mostly based on Baidu image results. If you want prescriptions from a dictionary, though... Both my Chinese-Chinese dictionaries give 柿子椒 as “一种辣椒”, which is interesting because you'd never describe bell peppers as a type of chili pepper in English. Meanwhile, one of them gives 青椒 as a synonym, which is just plain incorrect (though there is overlap in meaning).

 

What Edita says is correct though. If bell peppers were the only type of 红椒 available or relevant in the context, people would probably just drop 柿子.

[Publius]

Yes 青椒 = 柿子椒, never 辣椒, at least in Beijing.

[Demonic_Duck]

Not in my experience. 柿子椒 are round (shaped like a bell or a 柿子) and bittersweet, not spicy hot at all. 青椒 more commonly refers to a bitter, slightly spicy (but not sweet), large yet elongated type of pepper. Not sure on its English name.

[Publius]

No. 青椒 is 柿子椒. 柿子椒 is 青椒. Actually 青椒 is more commonly used. Of course that's before the colorful bell peppers were introduced. What you're talking about, we call 尖椒, non-existent in the north until around 90s when Sichuan/Hunan cuisine became popular. When 曹禺 wrote "乡下没什么好吃的，我就从地里摘了点韭菜、芹菜、擘兰(苤蓝)、黄瓜、青椒、豇豆这点东西", 青椒 could only mean one thing, green bell pepper, as shown in this page. As for the red bell pepper, you know what would I call it? 红青椒. Simple as that.

[skylee]

青椒 is 柿子椒. 柿子椒 is 青椒. Actually 青椒 is more commonly used.

I agree.

[陳德聰]

I don't know if I would ever use the word 柿子椒 except if having to dispel ambiguity. That being said, I have never and would probably never say "紅青椒", which frankly sounds ridiculous to me.

The two pictures I attached are both 青椒, and I more readily think of the longer pointy one than I do the bell-shaped one. The red equivalent of the longer pointy one pictured is way less common, so 紅椒 is not as ambiguous. If I had to distinguish between the green ones, I wouldn't use the word 青椒 at all because it simply means both. The notion that because in Beijing they call the pointy one something different, we all must... Is not something I can get behind. My boyfriend actually calls bell peppers 燈籠椒 which cracks me up, but 青椒 can only mean the pointy usually spicy ones for him. Sooooooo... A grain of salt for you, a grain of salt for you... And a grain of salt for you!

[abcdefg]

Agree with others above, different names are used for the same things in different parts of China. I could chime in with what these various peppers are usually called in Kunming, but not sure it would serve any purpose.

 

OP -- Are you trying to translate a school-book exercise, or do you really want to know for practical purposes, such as trying to figure out a menu item or in order to make a recipe. If you supply us with some context, you will get more useful answers.

[Publius]

Of course people from different places use different names. I was just surprised someone living in Beijing didn't know 青椒 means 柿子椒.

 

I don't think 红青椒 is that ridiculous. It's just a name like 黄瓜, so commonplace you no longer associate 黄 with yellow. It simply means cucumber, not yellow melon. If one day scientists manage to produce a white cucumber, it'll still be called 黄瓜, or if you're very specific about the color, 白黄瓜 perhaps. (Yeah I can imagine the confusion if some cucumbers are actually yellow lol).

 

I've already explained why 青椒 isn't (or wasn't) ambiguous at all for Beijingers. Because for a very long time, green was the only color, and bell shaped the only type you could find in a produce market. I'm well aware there may be other areas where the pointy type is dominant. But that's not the case where I live. And older people will continue to call it 青椒 even though in the shop it's labeled 柿子椒 (or even 圆椒!) to distinguish it from 尖椒.

[Demonic_Duck]

Of course people from different places use different names. I was just surprised someone living in Beijing didn't know 青椒 means 柿子椒.

I actually just recently moved to another part of China. 

 

Still, it's funny that you say "know" as if there's only one correct answer and yet we've already established that there's no clear consensus.

[skylee]

“My boyfriend actually calls bell peppers 燈籠椒 which cracks me up”

Yes, I think I have heard people say that, including my mom.