"我们要五个馒头。"

Translation: We want five steamed buns.

[GabrielleR380587]

Couldn't "steamed buns" also be translated as 包子?

[grippygecko]

Man tou are just steamed bread with no filling. Baozi are also steamed but always have a filling. Some people call baozi steamed X buns where X is the filling. Other people call them dumplings. Nowadays more people call them bao, because they are more familiar with Chinese cuisine. Man tou are less popular outside China so they will probably go on being steamed buns.

[DuoLiNxo]

Just call them by the real name, mántou (馒头) and bāozi (包子).
Just like we do for the most foods from others countries like sushi (寿司) , yakisoba (焼きそば), japchae (잡채).
Each culture have their own unique cuisine and translation is not accurate, but is to think in something similar instead.

[Fishlytea]

I agree. We should just use the Chinese pronunciation for all foods, except when theres already a commonly used term, such as fried rice or spring rolls.

[mgwuh]

Totally agree. So many of these translations barely make sense

[MLwYkP]

There are so many different types of steamed buns in China , we always have to say : ...包子；depending on what's kind of the things stuffing inside .
馒头 is a small size steamed bread ,but we just called it mántou 馒头，not 包子. That's it!
Kindly to recommend you don't learn Chinese style English here. Please !

[spac3_trass500]

:|

[Simon408067]

ffs just call them mantou, duo!

[Neil614539]

I answered "we want five steam buns" and was marked wrong.

[Artikyulet]

Thanks, everyone, for bringing up that "steamed bun" could be taken for mantou or bao zi in English, but what about “个”? Is that really the right measure word? I've been looking around, and it seems like “份” ("serving") might be more useful, but can any native speakers comment on whether that applies to something hand-portable like mantou?