I'm a little more than halfway through RTK - but I've always wanted to be able to really read a menu or ingredients label in Japan. I'm pretty particular about food, and I don't like having to ask people to help me order.

I know basic food kanji - 林檎、人参、杏、豚肉、海老、etc. Also some common stuff like 天ぷら盛り合わせ is okay. Then there's stuff like 味噌煮込み (is that stewed in miso?).

Anyways - anyone know of a really extensive list of food? At least a few hundred items, but ideally more. Or, any interest in working on putting together a Google spreadsheet of individual terms - 味噌、煮込み、ホタテ、蛋白質、etc. Basically, anything one might find on a menu or ingredients label.

I'm kind of planning to do it myself, but I think a collaboration would get many more items and I don't want to add things I'm not sure about.

Unfortunately I don't have time to contribute to this at the moment but sounds like a nice idea.

My wife and i are foodies and I do most of the cooking at home but once a month she cooks up a massive japanese feast to die for. With some gentle persuasion on my behalf i could get her to check your list if you like or get her to answer any queries you may have.

Post any queries for troublesome ones here but also send me a PM in case i miss the post.

I can imagine somewhat different lists depending on purpose: cooking, reading menus or product labels. You mentioned the last 2, so does that mean you're in Japan? I recall seeing something online about translating food labels. Are you interested in nutritional info or just food ingredients? If you have specific foods you're trying to avoid, I'd be happy to look them up in some of the food books I have.

You might be interested in a small book ($15) called A Dictionary of Japanese Food: Ingredients and Culture". More useful for cooking perhaps. Here's a Review (makes it sound more thorough than it is). Many cookbooks have good appendices with Japanese terms. There are also other books with food vocab translations (without any explanations). Similar lists might be available online.

[Katsuo]

This is not really what you're asking for, but anyway in case it's useful here are about 230 food related words with pictures, etc. in an Anki file. download

I'd say the best way to practice would be to collect menus from Japanese restaurants, look up the words yourself, and make an anki file out of them.

Thanks, Rooboy. I will try to start putting that together. I already have 100 or so items mixed in with my regular Anki deck, but a separate one would be good.

I'm not in Japan at the moment, but when I go, it would be nice to be able to both read ingredients labels, as well as understand a menu (and its descriptions). I always have trouble with that (that was before RTK, as well) - and sometimes friends's translations are a bit spotty.

Will check through the other threads - hopefully there are easy instructions on how to make a generally accessible / editable spreadsheet. Although I would guess that there's no way to sync it to Anki - other then exporting as CSV and then importing?

Katsuo Wrote:This is not really what you're asking for, but anyway in case it's useful here are about 230 food related words with pictures, etc. in an Anki file. download

Thanks for sharing. I recommend this to anyone wanting to learn about Japanese food. It includes illustrations, sound and notes. Impressive.