海鮮 / 海鲜
hoi² sin¹
The Cantonese phrase for seafood is 海鮮 / 海鲜 (hoi² sin¹).
海鮮 / 海鲜 is a noun used to refer to fish, shellfish, seaweed and other edible aquatic life.
Meaning: fish, shellfish, seaweed and other edible aquatic life (noun)
What does it mean word for word?
The word is composed of 海 (hoi²) meaning 'sea' and 鮮 (sin¹) meaning 'fresh'.
How do you pronounce it?
The romanization is hoi² sin¹.
Did you know?
- The character 鮮 (sin¹) is visually composed of three parts: fish, meat and sheep. This suggests that the ultimate definition of 'freshness' encompasses the best of all land and sea proteins.
- When buying 海鮮 (hoi² sin¹) in Hong Kong markets, you will often see them kept in oxygenated tanks rather than on ice. This is because live seafood is considered vastly superior in quality and taste to chilled fish.
- During Chinese New Year, certain types of 海鮮 (hoi² sin¹) are eaten because their names sound like lucky words. For example, certain fish are served because the word for 'surplus' sounds like the word for 'fish'.
Example sentences for Cantonese are not verified yet.
Sources
- Wiktionary, “seafood” translations, CC BY-SA 4.0, dump of 2026-09-26.
