At the coffee shop

Lesson 13

Now that you’ve learnt how to order a variety of different drinks in Chinese, let’s follow Emily and John as they visit a coffee shop in Beijing.

Supplementary vocabulary

家	jiā	measure word used before some business establishments
咖啡馆	kāfēiguǎn	coffee shop
好吧	hǎoba	alright
咖啡师	kāfēishī	barista
欢迎光临	huānyíngguānglín	welcome
点	diǎn	to order
还	hái	also
别的	biéde	other
还要别的吗?	háiyào biéde ma?	anything else?
需要	xūyào	to need
块（儿）	kuài (kuàir)	(measure word) piece or slice
巧克力	qiǎokèlì	chocolate
蛋糕	dàngāo	cake
在	zài	at, in
带走	dàizǒu	take away

Dialogue

Emily and John are out sightseeing around Beijing. They are having an amazing time but start to feel tired.

Try your best to understand the dialogue using the vocabulary lists and notes. However, if you are still unclear about something, click this box to see the English translation.

Emily: I’m tired and thirsty. Let’s go to that coffee shop.
John: Alright.
[At the coffee shop]
Barista: Welcome. What would you like to drink?
John: Hello. I would like a cup of coffee with a little milk and extra sugar.
Barista: Hot or iced?
John: Hot.
Barista: Anything else?
Emily: I would like a cup of hot black tea without sugar.
Barista: Alright. Anything else you need?
Emily: I also want a piece of chocolate cake.
Barista: Alright, one cup of coffee with milk, one cup of black tea, and a piece of chocolate cake. Would you like to drink here or take away?
John: We’ll drink here.
Barista: The total is 68 yuan.
John: Okay.

Notes

Customer service expressions

In China customers are typically greeted with “欢迎光临” as they enter stores and other businesses. As they leave it is typical for them to be told “慢走” (màn zǒu) which literally means “walk slowly”. Since Chinese people believe that the slower you walk, the safer you will be, it is a way of saying “take care”.

Erhua

Chinese erhua, also known as “r-colouring,” is a phonological phenomenon in certain Chinese dialects where an “r” sound is added at the end of words or syllables. It is commonly heard in Beijing dialect (Mandarin) and some other northern dialects. As you may have noticed with “块” in this lesson, sometimes we add “儿” as part of the syllable. Erhua is typically added to nouns, verbs, and adjectives. It can serve different purposes, such as indicating plural forms, expressing emphasis, or functioning as a grammatical marker. I will often pronounce commonly words that typically undergo this change both in the original and erhua forms in the audio so that you can become familiar with both.