Several parts combine into one character.

Phonetic-semantic compound: 食 (food / eat radical, from earlier batch — note left-side variant 飠/饣) + 反 (reverse, providing phonetic value). The encoded meaning: "to chew and swallow food" → cooked rice / a meal. Three forms with predictable simplification: 繁體 飯 / 新字体 飯 / 简体 饭 (the food radical simplified to 饣).

Critical fact: 飯 / 饭 in modern usage means specifically COOKED rice or "a meal" — distinguished from 米 (raw rice grain). The cooking distinction matters in CJK languages.

Mandarin: fàn, falling 4th tone (simplified 饭). 饭 anchors meal vocabulary: 米饭 (mǐfàn, cooked rice — the everyday word), 吃饭 (chīfàn, to eat a meal — extremely high-frequency phrase), 早饭 (zǎofàn, breakfast), 午饭 (wǔfàn, lunch), 晚饭 (wǎnfàn, dinner), 饭馆 (fànguǎn, restaurant), 饭店 (fàndiàn, hotel / restaurant — note dual meaning we discussed in 店 entry), 盒饭 (héfàn, lunch box meal). The greeting 你吃饭了吗? (Nǐ chīfàn le ma? "Have you eaten?") is a Mandarin equivalent to "How are you?" in casual speech.

Japanese: on-reading ハン (han) — 赤飯 (sekihan, red rice / red beans rice — celebratory dish for births, weddings, achievements), 朝飯 (chōhan, breakfast — formal). The everyday compound 朝ご飯 (asagohan, breakfast), 昼ご飯 (hirugohan, lunch), 晩ご飯 (bangohan, dinner) uses the kun-reading. Kun-readings: ご飯 (gohan, cooked rice / a meal — the most polite everyday word) and めし (meshi, rice / meal — masculine and somewhat rough register, used among male friends or in army contexts: 飯食う ka? = "Wanna eat?"). The ご飯/めし register split is essential for Japanese politeness — never say 飯 (meshi) to your boss.

Memory aid: food + reversal = chewing food into nourishment. The cooked rice and prepared meal of CJK kitchens.