Learn Hardcore Chinese: wǒ xǐhuan zuòfàn gěi jiārén chī.

When 给 is followed by a person and then another verb, like 给家人吃, it usually marks who benefits from or receives the action, not a separate “give” action.

Why do we need 吃 at the end? Isn’t 做饭 already “to cook (to eat)”?

做饭 by itself just means “to cook” or “to make a meal.”

Adding 吃 at the end, 做饭给家人吃, makes the structure:

做饭 – cook
给家人 – for (my) family
吃 – (for them) to eat

So the nuance is:

我喜欢做饭给家人吃。
→ “I like cooking meals for my family to eat.”

Chinese often adds a verb like 吃 (eat), 看 (watch), 用 (use), etc., to show what the result or purpose of the action is. Here, it emphasizes that the cooking is specifically so that the family can eat it, not, for example, for practice, for photos, for selling, etc.

You can say 我喜欢给家人做饭, and that’s perfectly natural, but …做饭给家人吃 just makes the “for them to eat” part more explicit.

Can I say 我喜欢给家人做饭 instead? What’s the difference from 我喜欢做饭给家人吃?

Yes, 我喜欢给家人做饭 is completely correct and very natural.

Both roughly mean: “I like cooking for my family.”

Subtle differences:

我喜欢给家人做饭。
- Structure: 给家人做饭 – “for my family, (I) cook.”
- Feels slightly more like “I like cooking for my family” (focus on the relationship: doing something for them).
我喜欢做饭给家人吃。
- Structure: 做饭给家人吃 – “cook (food) for my family to eat.”
- Emphasizes the result: I cook so that they can eat what I make.

In everyday speech, both are fine and often interchangeable. Native speakers use both patterns.

Can I leave out 给 and say 我喜欢做饭家人吃?

No, 我喜欢做饭家人吃 is not grammatical.

You need 给 to link 家人 to the verb and show that your family are the recipients/beneficiaries of the action:

给家人吃 = “(for) the family to eat”
Without 给, 家人 and 吃 are just stuck together without a clear relationship.

So you must have something like:

做饭给家人吃
or 给家人做饭

But 做饭家人吃 is incorrect in standard Mandarin.

Could I drop 吃 and just say 我喜欢做饭给家人?

You would not normally say 我喜欢做饭给家人 and stop there. It feels incomplete, because 给家人 wants something after it (what are you doing for them?).

More natural options:

我喜欢给家人做饭。
我喜欢做饭给家人吃。

If you really want to end after 给家人, you’d usually need a noun:

我喜欢做饭给家人吃的。 (ellipsis of a noun like 东西 “things”)
Literally: “I like making things for my family to eat.”

So:

Drop only 吃? → No, sounds unfinished.
Reorder to 给家人做饭? → Yes, very natural.

Why is it 家人 and not 我的家人? Don’t we need “my” in Chinese?

Chinese often omits possessives like 我 + 的 when the relationship is obvious from context.

In a sentence like 我喜欢做饭给家人吃:

The subject is 我 (“I”),
The default assumption is that 家人 refers to “my family.”

So adding 我 or 我的 is optional:

我喜欢做饭给家人吃。 (normal, natural)
我喜欢做饭给我家人吃。 (also okay, a bit more explicit/emphatic)
我喜欢做饭给我的家人吃。 (fully explicit; can sound slightly more formal/emotional)

In daily speech, 家人 alone is enough, because it’s clear whose family we’re talking about.

Why doesn’t 家人 take 们 to show plural, like 家人们?

家人 already implies “family members” (plural) as a group. It’s a collective noun, so you normally don’t add 们.

家人 = “(my) family members; family” (already plural by meaning)

You can see a similar pattern with:

朋友 “friend / friends” (plural is often just 朋友, not 朋友们, unless you want to emphasize the group)
同学 “classmate / classmates”

家人们 does appear sometimes, but it:

is less common,
usually sounds more emotional or literary, or in certain stylistic contexts (e.g. addressing “dear family members” in a speech).

For a neutral sentence like this, 家人 is the standard choice.

How does 喜欢 work with verbs? Why is it 我喜欢做饭 and not 我喜欢去做饭 or something else?

In Chinese, 喜欢 (xǐhuan) can directly take a verb or a verb phrase as its object:

喜欢 + 名词 (noun)
- 我喜欢音乐。 – I like music.
喜欢 + 动词 (verb)
- 我喜欢做饭。 – I like cooking.
- 我喜欢看书。 – I like reading books.

You don’t need anything like English “to”:

English: “I like to cook / cooking.”
Chinese: 我喜欢做饭。 (just “I like cook-meal”)

我喜欢去做饭 is also possible, but it has a nuance more like:

“I like going (somewhere) to cook” / “I like the act of going to cook,”
so it’s not the neutral, simple “I like cooking” anymore.

So the most basic, natural structure is simply:

喜欢 + [verb phrase] → 我喜欢做饭.

Is 做饭 considered a separable verb-object word? How is it behaving in this sentence?

Yes, 做饭 is a verb-object (VO) structure:

做 – “to do / to make” (verb)
饭 – “rice / meal / food” (object)

Together, 做饭 means “to cook / to make a meal,” but grammatically, it’s still verb + object.

That’s why you can:

Insert complements or other elements between 做 and 饭 in some sentences:
- 做好饭 – “finish cooking (the meal)”
- 先做好饭再看电视。 – “First finish cooking, then watch TV.”

In 我喜欢做饭给家人吃, we keep 做饭 together as a chunk and then add another phrase:

做饭 + 给家人吃

So here, it acts as a VO phrase first, and then 给家人吃 is added as an extra part showing who it’s for and what happens to it.

What’s the difference between 家人, 家里的人, and 家庭? Which one fits best here?

All relate to “family,” but they’re used differently:

家人
- Literally “family people.”
- Means “family members,” usually your own.
- Common in everyday speech for “my family.”
- Best fit in 我喜欢做饭给家人吃。
家里的人
- Literally “the people at home / in the household.”
- Slightly more descriptive, can emphasize people physically at home or in your household.
- Also fine here:
  - 我喜欢做饭给家里的人吃。 – also natural, maybe a bit more “household”-focused.
家庭
- More abstract: “family unit,” “household” as a concept, or “family” as a social entity.
- Used in words like:
  - 家庭生活 – family life
  - 家庭关系 – family relationships
- You wouldn’t normally say 给家庭吃; that sounds wrong.

So for “I like to cook for my family to eat,” 家人 is the most straightforward choice.

Is this sentence talking about a general habit, or about something happening right now? Why is there no time word like “often” or “now”?

我喜欢做饭给家人吃 describes a general preference/habit, not a one-time event.

In Chinese, if you use 喜欢 + verb without any time marker or aspect particle, it usually means:

a general liking or habit, e.g.
- 我喜欢跑步。 – I like running. (in general)
- 我喜欢喝茶。 – I like drinking tea. (in general)

To talk about something happening right now, you’d usually change the structure:

我在给家人做饭。 – I’m cooking for my family (right now).
我正在做饭给家人吃。 – I’m currently cooking for my family to eat.

So the original sentence is about what you generally enjoy doing, not your present activity at this moment.

How should I pronounce 喜欢? I sometimes see xǐhuan and sometimes xǐhuān.

Standard modern Mandarin pronounces 喜欢 as:

xǐhuan → xǐ (3rd tone) + huan in a neutral tone (轻声 qīngshēng).

So:

我喜欢做饭。 → Wǒ xǐhuan zuòfàn.

You might occasionally see xǐhuān (3rd + 1st tone) in older materials or dictionaries as a more “full” pronunciation, but in everyday speech, the second syllable is a light, unstressed neutral tone.

For natural speaking, use:

xǐhuan (3rd + neutral).