Kitchen objects in English for adult learners

Learn kitchen objects in English by matching each tool to its job: a cleaver cuts, a spatula turns food and a rice cooker cooks rice. The word list below focuses on a Chinese kitchen, with useful requests for preparing dinner together.

Identify the cooking area

Look above the stove for the range hood, then separate the heat source from the pan sitting on it. The gas stove is the appliance; the wok is the cooking vessel. Calling both of them a cooker makes it harder for a helper to know what you mean.

On the work surface, a cutting board gives you a place to prepare ingredients, while a cleaver is the broad-bladed knife used with it. Soy sauce belongs with ingredients and seasonings. It is the only item in this list that you might add to food, so treat it differently from the equipment when making sentences.

Chinese kitchen word list

English word	Chinese scene meaning
range hood	抽油烟机
gas stove	燃气灶
wok	炒锅
spatula	锅铲
rice cooker	电饭煲
cutting board	砧板
cleaver	菜刀
soy sauce	酱油

Invite someone to help prepare dinner

Begin with “Could you pass me the cutting board?” Pass me asks another person to hand you something. If the board is already beside you, “Could you put the cleaver next to the board?” makes the next location clear. “Where do you keep the spatula?” is useful in someone else's kitchen, where you do not know the drawers.

A helper might ask “Is this the right pan?” You can answer “Let's use the wok.” If someone is looking for the rice, say “The rice cooker is on the counter.” Notice the preposition on: an appliance rests on the work surface. “The rice cooker is in the counter” would suggest it is inside the cabinetry.

For seasoning, “Could you pass the soy sauce?” names the bottle through its contents. “There's some soy sauce beside the stove” describes what is available. You do not need to add an article before soy sauce when you mean the liquid in general. If the container matters, say “a bottle of soy sauce.”

Choose verbs that fit the equipment

Use turn on and turn off with the range hood or rice cooker: “Could you turn on the range hood?” describes starting the appliance. “Open the range hood” would usually sound like opening a panel, not switching on ventilation. This is a common trap when translating 开 directly into open for every device.

With tools, use the tool name after with: “I stir the vegetables with a spatula” or “She cuts the cabbage with a cleaver.” For the pan, use in: “We cook the vegetables in the wok.” Compare that with “The wok is on the gas stove.” The food is inside the vessel, and the vessel sits on the appliance.

Ask “Is the rice cooker finished?” when talking about whether its cooking cycle is done. In casual conversation, “Is the rice ready?” may be the more useful question because it focuses on dinner. Choosing the object or the food as your subject changes what you are asking about.

Wok, pan, pot and cooker

Pan is a broad everyday term; wok is more precise for the deep cooking vessel in this scene. A pot is commonly deeper and used for tasks such as boiling. You can say pan when the exact shape is unimportant, but learning wok gives you a clear way to request this particular item.

A spatula can take different shapes, including turners and flexible scraping tools. In this kitchen list it means the utensil used with the wok. A cleaver is a kind of knife, so “knife” is a wider category rather than an exact synonym. Rice cooker names a specific appliance; “rice pot” may be understood as the pot itself and can leave the listener unsure which object you want.

Test your kitchen English

Keep the right column covered while you answer. Then change each request to fit a real object in your kitchen.

Prompt	Answer
Ask someone to hand you the seasoning	Could you pass me the soy sauce?
Correct “open the rice cooker” when you mean start it	Turn on the rice cooker.
Say where the wok is	The wok is on the gas stove.
Name the board used for preparing vegetables	Cutting board

Finally, explain the difference between the stove and the wok without using Chinese. Mentioning which one supplies heat and which one holds food shows that you can distinguish the objects in conversation.

Where to get it

Find the Chinese Kitchen scene in Pixo, available for iOS, Android and HarmonyOS. Its word pronunciation and picture-based exercises give you a way to revisit the eight kitchen names before trying them in your own dinner conversation.