"You do not eat rice."
Translation:你不吃饭。
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So since rice is sometimes used as a standin, this could also just mean "you do not eat"?
I too would like to know the how to distinguish when someone means rice or generally food?
In my experience, it's context. Generally when fan (飯) is paired with 吃 chi, it means "to eat food". If you want to say rice, you would say 米飯(mi3fan4) or just 米(mi3). I've never seen 吃飯 mean "to eat rice" in any media or when speaking to native chinese speakers.
Yeah, saying "eat rice" for 吃饭 is really weird. It's pretty much always used for "to eat". Eating rice on its own is 吃米饭 or 吃大米. It means "rice" in dish names, such as 红烧牛肉盖浇饭, but even in words and phrases like 一顿饭, it should be understood as "meal"
yeah why don't they just say 米饭 instead? this could also mean that you don't eat a meal, like how I heard it from my parents multiple times growing up when I refused to eat the seafood casserole
Whats the difference between pronunciation of fish and rice (Chinese ones)
Just FYI, if you can't type the tone marks (like I can't), you can type the number of the tone after the pinyin to at least indicate what tone the word is. Example: yu2 and fan4
It's cumbersome, but at least is better than no tone indications at all.
