What would you carry in a bread cart? It could be bread, but doesn’t have to be. Let’s find out more.
One word that came up in my Chinese lessons this week was 面包车 [麵包車] (miànbāochē) which can be literally translated as ‘bread vehicle / cart’. According to the MDBG Chinese dictionary, it means a van for carrying people or a taxi minibus. According to Wiktionary, it means a vehicle for delivering bread, or a minibus or van (chiefly in Mainland China).
Other words for van in Chinese include:
- 货车 [貨車] (huòchē) = truck, van, freight train, goods train, goods wagon
- 厢式车 [廂式車] (xiāngshìchē) = van
- 小型货车 [小型貨車] (xiǎoxínghuòchē) = light van
- 廂型車 [厢型车] (xiāngxíngchē) = minivan, van (used in Taiwan)
In Japanese, 貨車 (kasha) is also used, and means a freight train, a train car used to carry freight, or a van [source].
Incidentally, the word van can refer to: a covered motor vehicle used to carry goods or (normally less than 10) persons, usually roughly cuboid in shape. Depending on the type of van, it can be bigger or smaller than a pickup truck and SUV, and longer and higher than a car but relatively smaller than a truck/lorry or a bus [source].
It’s short for caravan, which comes from Middle French caravane (caravan – a group of travellers, merchants, and pilgrims, gathered together to cross the desert more safely), from Old French carvane, from Persian کاروان (kârvân – caravan, convoy), from Middle Persian kʾlwʾn’ (kārawān), from Old Persian 𐎣𐎠𐎼 (k-a-r – the people, subjects, army), from Proto-Iranian *kā́rah (army, crowd), from Proto-Indo-European *kór-o-s, from *ker- (army) [source].
The word vanguard (The leading units at the front of an army or fleet; The person(s) at the forefront of any group or movement) is not related. Instead, it comes from vandgard / (a)vantgard, from Old French avant-garde (the vanguard of an army or other force). This is also the root of the word avant-garde, which in English can refer to any group of people who invent or promote new techniques or concepts, especially in the arts. While in French, it can refer to the vanguard (of an army), or the avant-garde as in English [source].
guard’s van
A vanguard should not be confused with a guard’s van, which in the UK and Ireland can refer to a van or carriage, or part of one, on a train occupied by the guard, that can be used as storage space for parcels, bicycles, large pieces of luggage, etc. Such things are rarely found on modern passenger trains in the UK, though there may be a small cubbyhole for the train manager (formerly known as the guard), and/or storage space for bicycles on some trains [source].
By the way, the day this post was posted, 26th March 2026, marks exactly 20 years since I started this blog on 26th March 2006. Since then, I have posted 3,963 posts here, 3.8 per week on average, and plan to continue doing so. I realised this after posting this, and thought I’d mention it.
