How to read a ramen menu (塩 醤油 味噌 豚骨)

Four words will get you through most ramen menus in Japan, and each one names a kind of soup. 塩 (shio) is salt. 醤油 (shouyu) is soy sauce. 味噌 (miso) is miso. And 豚骨 (tonkotsu) is pork bone, which is exactly what it sounds like: a rich, milky broth made by boiling pork bones for hours. Learn these four and you can order in almost any ramen shop.

The four soups

塩, shio: salt. 塩ラーメン (shio ramen) has a light, clear, salty broth, and it’s usually described as the oldest of the four styles. 塩 is the simplified form of 鹽, built on 鹵, salt. In today’s 塩 you can spot 土, earth, on the left and 皿, a dish, at the bottom: a handy picture is salt from the earth, served in a dish.

醤油, shouyu: soy sauce. On English menus it’s often spelled shoyu. 醤 (hishio) is an old word for a salty fermented paste, and 油 (abura) normally means oil. There’s no oil in soy sauce, though, and nobody is quite sure why the name has 油 in it. One explanation is that here it just means a thick liquid. Chinese writes soy sauce the same way, 醬油 (jiàngyóu). Shoyu ramen has a clear brown broth, and it’s the classic Tokyo style.

味噌, miso. 味 (aji) means flavour, with 口, a mouth, on its left and 未 giving the sound. 噌 is a rare kanji you’ll hardly ever meet outside this word. The word miso is old: it appears in tax records from 738, written 未醤, which can be read as “not yet sauce”. That may be where the word comes from, but it’s only one theory. Miso ramen is rich and hearty, and it’s most associated with Sapporo, where it was invented.

豚骨, tonkotsu: pork bone. 豚 (buta, ton) is a pig: 月, here meaning flesh, beside 豕, an old character for a pig. 骨 (hone, kotsu) is a bone. Its top began as a drawing of bones, and the flesh (月) underneath was added later. Both kanji take their Chinese-style readings here, so it’s ton-kotsu, not buta-hone. Tonkotsu ramen comes from Kyushu, and Hakata, in Fukuoka, is its most famous home.

Tonkotsu is not tonkatsu

豚骨 (tonkotsu) is the pork-bone soup. 豚カツ (tonkatsu), one vowel away, is a breaded, deep-fried pork cutlet. Both start with 豚, pig, so the mix-up is easy to make.

The same 骨 hides in an everyday word, too: コツ (kotsu), the knack of doing something, can be written with this kanji, though it’s normally spelled in katakana. A handy way to remember it: the knack is the bone of a skill, the part everything else hangs on.

More words on the menu

• 替え玉 (kaedama): a second helping of noodles, dropped into the soup you have left. Most tonkotsu shops offer it.
• 大盛り (oomori): a large serving. 並 (nami) or 並盛り (namimori) is the regular size.
• 味玉 (ajitama): a soft-boiled egg marinated in soy sauce and mirin, with the same 味 as miso.
• チャーシュー (chaashuu): slices of roast or braised pork.
• 食券 (shokken): a meal ticket. In many small ramen shops you pay first at a ticket machine by the door, then hand the ticket to the staff.

How to use it

• 味噌ラーメンを一つください。

  Miso raamen o hitotsu kudasai.

  One miso ramen, please.

• 醤油ラーメン、大盛りでお願いします。

  Shouyu raamen, oomori de onegai shimasu.

  A large shoyu ramen, please.

• 味玉もお願いします。

  Ajitama mo onegai shimasu.

  A marinated egg too, please.

• 替え玉ください！

  Kaedama kudasai!

  Extra noodles, please!

• Look for hiragana too. Menus and ticket machines sometimes write the soups in kana: しお, しょうゆ, みそ, and very often とんこつ.
• ください or お願いします after the dish is all you need to order. お願いします is a touch softer.
• One ramen is 一つ (hitotsu), two is 二つ (futatsu). Or just hold up your fingers.

Words with the same kanji

Remember it

Salt (塩) from the earth, a sauce with “oil” (油) in its name, a mouthful of flavour (味), and pig (豚) bones (骨) boiled until the soup turns white. Point at one and say ください.

The kanji in this lesson

Tap Draw it to watch the stroke order. Numbers show where each stroke starts.

Draw it

Draw it

Draw it

Draw it

Draw it

Sources

• Wikipedia: Ramen
• Wiktionary: 味噌
• Jisho (JMdict): 豚骨ラーメン
• Kikkoman FOOD CULTURE: 中国語「醤油」事情 (in Japanese)
• CUHK Multi-function Chinese Character Database: 骨

Written by the Chirami team with the help of AI, then checked against JMdict and KANJIDIC2. How we write lessons. Spotted a mistake? Email support@brightsmilesolutions.org.