Learn Mandarin with the McDonald's Menu in China: 8 Essential Items

A McDonald's menu is one of the easiest places to practise real Chinese. You already know most of the food, so you can focus on the words, and the names are full of patterns that come up again and again. McDonald's itself is 麦当劳 (màidāngláo), a sound loan of the English name, and that first syllable, 麦, turns up all over the menu.

Below are eight items from the official McDonald's China menu, each with characters, pinyin, what it is and one language point worth keeping. After that there's a short list of phrases for ordering at the counter. Menus change and limited-time items come and go, but everything here is on the regular menu at the time of writing.

1. 巨无霸 (jùwúbà): Big Mac

What it is: the Big Mac, the same two beef patties, sesame bun, lettuce, onion, pickles, cheese and sauce you'd get anywhere else.

Language point: the Chinese name isn't a translation of "Big Mac" at all. 巨 (jù) means huge, 无 (wú) means without, and 霸 (bà) is an overlord or tyrant, so the name says something like "a giant without rival". 巨无霸 is also an everyday word for anything enormous, so you'll hear it used about huge buildings, ships or portions, not just burgers.

Burgers take the general measure word 个 (gè), which usually loses its tone after a number. Because 个 is fourth tone underneath, 一 (yī) changes to second tone in front of it:

一个巨无霸
yí ge jùwúbà
one Big Mac

2. 麦辣鸡腿汉堡 (màilà jītuǐ hànbǎo): McSpicy chicken burger

What it is: a crispy, spicy fried chicken burger with lettuce and a creamy dressing. The official menu calls it a signature product developed specially for the 中国胃 (zhōngguó wèi), the "Chinese stomach", which is a handy phrase in itself for talking about Chinese tastes.

Language point: break the name into its parts and it reads almost like a description:

• 麦辣 (màilà): "Mc-spicy". 麦 is borrowed from 麦当劳 and 辣 (là) means spicy hot.
• 鸡腿 (jītuǐ): chicken leg. On the menu this means boneless leg meat, not a drumstick.
• 汉堡 (hànbǎo): burger, itself a sound loan from "Hamburg".

Once you know 辣, you can spot it across the menu: 麦辣鸡翅 (màilà jīchì) are the spicy chicken wings.

3. 板烧鸡腿堡 (bǎnshāo jītuǐ bǎo): grilled chicken burger

What it is: a boneless chicken leg fillet seasoned with onion and pepper, served with lettuce and a roast-flavoured sauce. The official description says it's cooked without oil, which makes it the lighter option among the chicken burgers.

Language point: 板 (bǎn) is a board or plate and 烧 (shāo) means to cook or roast, so 板烧 is "hot-plate cooked". It echoes 铁板烧 (tiěbǎnshāo), "iron-plate cooking", the Chinese word for teppanyaki. Notice too that the name ends in 堡 (bǎo), not 汉堡. Menus often shorten 汉堡 to just 堡, so when you see a word ending in 堡, it's a burger.

This name is also good tone practice. 板, 腿 and 堡 are all third tones. In a pair of third tones the first one rises, so 腿堡 comes out closer to "tuí bǎo" in natural speech. If tone changes like this still trip you up, our guide to tones in Chinese goes through the rules one at a time.

4. 麦乐鸡 (màilèjī): Chicken McNuggets

What it is: Chicken McNuggets, sold in boxes of different sizes and in Happy Meals.

Language point: this is the clearest example of 麦 working as a brand prefix. 乐 (lè) means happy or joyful and 鸡 (jī) is chicken, so the name is roughly "Mc-happy chicken". Once you've noticed the pattern, you'll see it everywhere:

• 麦香鱼 (màixiāngyú): Filet-O-Fish ("Mc-fragrant fish")
• 麦旋风 (màixuànfēng): McFlurry (旋风 means whirlwind)
• 麦满分 (màimǎnfēn): McMuffin (满分 means full marks), as in 猪柳蛋麦满分 (zhūliǔ dàn màimǎnfēn), the sausage and egg McMuffin
• 麦乐送 (màilèsòng): McDonald's delivery service (送 means to deliver)

Nuggets are counted in 块 (kuài), "pieces". The Happy Meal version is listed as 麦乐鸡（4块）, four pieces.

5. 薯条 (shǔtiáo): fries

What it is: fries, or what most of us in the UK would call chips.

Language point: 薯 (shǔ) means potato or yam and 条 (tiáo) means a strip, so 薯条 is simply "potato strips". 条 is also the measure word for long, thin things (一条鱼 yì tiáo yú, a fish; 一条路 yì tiáo lù, a road), so the word teaches you a shape as well as a food. Large fries are often shortened to 大薯 (dà shǔ); McDonald's China even has a brand event called 大薯日, "Large Fries Day".

A side dish you won't find in the UK is the 玉米杯 (yùmǐ bēi), a cup of sweetcorn. 玉米 is corn and 杯 (bēi) is a cup, which is also the measure word you'll use for every drink.

6. 皮蛋鸡肉粥 (pídàn jīròu zhōu): century egg and chicken congee

What it is: a breakfast rice porridge made with preserved egg and chicken. It sits on the breakfast menu alongside 脆香油条 (cuìxiāng yóutiáo), a crisp fried dough stick, and 优品豆浆 (yōupǐn dòujiāng), soy milk. Congee, youtiao and soy milk together are a very ordinary Chinese breakfast, so this is a good set of words to know beyond McDonald's.

Language point: 皮蛋 (pídàn) is "century egg", a preserved duck egg. The official description calls it by another name, 松花蛋 (sōnghuādàn), after the pine-branch-like patterns that can form on the egg white, so it's worth recognising both. 粥 (zhōu) is congee, and you'd usually order it with 份 (fèn), "a portion": 一份粥 (yí fèn zhōu).

Soy milk is worth a second look too. Outside McDonald's you'll come across 甜豆浆 (tián dòujiāng), sweet soy milk, and 咸豆浆 (xián dòujiāng), salty or savoury soy milk, which is a separate savoury dish rather than a drink. 咸 (xián) means salty, not "unsweetened".

7. 香芋派 (xiāngyù pài): taro pie

What it is: a fried pastry with a sweet, purple taro filling. Its partner on the dessert menu is the 菠萝派 (bōluó pài), pineapple pie.

Language point: 派 (pài) is a sound loan of the English word "pie". The character normally means a faction or school of thought, but here it's used only for its sound. The same trick gives the dessert menu 新地 (xīndì), sundae, which came into Mandarin through Cantonese. 香 (xiāng) means fragrant and 芋 (yù) is taro, and 香芋 is the usual way taro-flavoured sweets are named.

Pies take 个: 一个菠萝派 (yí ge bōluó pài), one pineapple pie.

8. 阳光柠檬红茶 (yángguāng níngméng hóngchá): lemon black tea

What it is: a lemon-flavoured black tea. There's also a plainer 锡兰红茶 (xīlán hóngchá), Ceylon black tea.

Language point: 红茶 (hóngchá) literally means "red tea", but it's the word for ordinary black tea, the kind most British people drink every day. If you ask for "black tea" by translating it as 黑茶 (hēichá), you're naming a different, fermented type of tea. 阳光 (yángguāng) means sunshine, and it's just part of the product name.

The fizzy drinks are worth a look while you're here: 可口可乐 (kěkǒu kělè), Coca-Cola, is a famous loan that works on sound and meaning at once, roughly "tasty and enjoyable". 可口 is two third tones, so in speech it becomes "kékǒu". Everyday speech shortens it to 可乐 (kělè).

The 8 items at a glance

How to order at McDonald's in Chinese

A set meal is a 套餐 (tàocān), and a Happy Meal is a 开心乐园餐 (kāixīn lèyuán cān), "happy paradise meal". Watch the first sound of 套餐: the t is aspirated, with a clear puff of air as in the English "top", and the c in 餐 is an aspirated "ts" sound. Mandarin's unaspirated sounds are the ones written d and z.

These phrases cover a normal counter order:

• 我要一个巨无霸套餐。 wǒ yào yí ge jùwúbà tàocān. (I'd like a Big Mac meal.)
• 再要一份麦乐鸡。 zài yào yí fèn màilèjī. (And a portion of McNuggets as well.)
• 加一杯可乐。 jiā yì bēi kělè. (Add a Coke.)
• 在这儿吃还是带走？ zài zhèr chī háishi dàizǒu? (Eat in or take away?) You can answer with just 在这儿吃 (zài zhèr chī, eat in) or 带走 (dàizǒu, take away).
• 不要冰。 bú yào bīng. (No ice.) Note that 不 changes to bú before the fourth tone of 要.
• 就这些。 jiù zhèxiē. (That's everything.)

The measure words are the part most learners hesitate over, so keep it simple: 个 for burgers and pies, 份 for a portion of fries, nuggets or congee, and 杯 for any drink. For more restaurant language beyond fast food, see our guide on how to order food in Chinese.

These lines are chunks: you learn the frame once (我要一个…套餐, 加一杯…) and swap the item in. Saying them aloud before you need them is what makes them come out at the counter. If you'd like to practise that way, the Chunking Chinese fluency trainer is a speaking app built around reusable sentence chunks, and it gives feedback on the tone and pronunciation of each character as you speak.

Keep the words you've learned

A menu is a good source of short, real sentences, which is exactly what sentence mining works best with. Pick the two or three ordering phrases you're most likely to use and review them until they're automatic. Mandarin Mosaic is a sentence-mining app, and you can add your own sentences as a custom pack and review them with spaced repetition alongside the sentences it already includes.

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