Punjabi food words: chaa, roti, and everything on the table
Nobody gets out of a Punjabi home without being fed, so the kitchen is where a learner's vocabulary earns its keep fastest. Start with ਚਾਹ (chaa, tea) and ਰੋਟੀ (roti), and know that "roti kha lai?", literally "have you eaten roti?", is really asking "have you eaten at all?", because roti stands in for the whole meal.
The words
Not 'chai tea'. Just chaa, and it is offered within minutes of you sitting down.
Also means the meal itself: roti kha lai? means 'have you eaten?'
The box from the sweet shop. A ladoo is the round one this app is named after.
What every Punjabi grandmother says on loop.
bhukkh laggi hai: I'm hungry.
The two commands you will hear forever
Khao, "eat", and its gentler cousin hor lao, "take more", are the soundtrack of every Punjabi kitchen. Declining is a ritual with rounds: the first na ji is never taken seriously, the second is negotiated, and by the third you have usually already been served. Learning to lose this game gracefully is part of learning Punjabi.
More word lists and guides: greetings · family words · love and thanks · the Gurmukhi alphabet
Hear every word, then say it back. The audio on this page is the same audio in the Ladoo app, where every lesson is free.