A spring onion is the type of onion routinely used in Chinese cookery and which (I believe) is part of the so-called 'holy trinity,' of Chinese cookery. It is long and thin. A chive looks like a herb. It has an onion flavour. It is used chopped as a garnish or mixed with cream cheese. A shallot looks like a small round onion. The scallion looks like a spring onion. I cannot comment on its flavour as I have never eaten one. p.s rather than ask the question on here, why not use google images?

Hmm no, please don't rely on your translator for this one. Use an image search for each word, and put the word in plural - that will help. You can do this at www.bing.com/images Note: some of the words are regional. For example, the image results for "scallions" are what we call "shallots" in Australia. Even though some images of scallions and spring onions look identical, I understand that spring onions have a large round end. I'd be interested in how other English speakers from other countries define the differences.

Scallions and spring onions are exactly the same .long thin green shoots with a white bulb at the top. Chives are long thin green blades like grass only tubular in shape Shallots are often red narrow elongated bulbs - like an onion that someone sat on! Smaller than an onion but bigger than a scallion top

I agree with @robuspierre. We're talking about three different things here: Chives are a herb - we only eat the part that grows above ground ie we eat the shoots not the bulbs. The part we eat looks like dark green grass with thin tubular shoots. You'd typically cut chives into small pieces and sprinkle on top of a dish just before serving to give a fresh, onion taste. Sour cream and chives is a popular topping for baked potatoes. Spring onions and scallions are alternative names for the same thing. We tend to say spring onions in Britain and scallions in the US. They have a small white bulb and long shoots which are white at the base and dark green at the tips. You can eat them raw in salads, or cooked in Asian-style stir-fries. Shallots are small onions, maybe 5 cm long by 3 cm wide, often reddish in colour. As with ordinary onions, we only eat the bulbs of shallots.