HOW TO ORDER COFFEE IN ITALY: Local Tips to Experience the Bar & Learn Easy to Advanced Italian

[Music] uh um [Music] [Music] [Music] oh [Music] a [Music] oh [Music] the italian bar is this not one of the most beautiful experiences in italy this is uh something that i thought could be useful to all of you because even the most advanced speaker in this context often freezes up uh i find because you think about it if you're speaking with your taxi driver or um you know you're checking into your hotel or your apartment and you're speaking with the host or even your waiter in a restaurant you have that that time and and and that person is looking you in the eye and is trying to uh understand what you're you're attempting to tell them but when you go into a bar and by by i mean cafe because a cafe is um in italian is ba just think of it like the word barista it's like there's the word bar in that so when you go in there you have uh along the counter will be like usually a whole line of italians are eager to get their morning coffee and so essentially you have an audience which can be quite intimidating also the ballista is so busy it's not like a waiter who's just there to to listen to you he's trying to to make eight different types of coffee and listen to the person over at the casa so you have to be fast you have to be clear you have to have brilliant pronunciation and also you have to know what he's saying back to you because often times you'll ask for something and there might be some sort of modification you can't do that or they don't have soy milk or whatever so i'm going to try and help you with all of the possible phrases that you could hear in an italian bar when you're getting your coffee okay let's start with guangzhou this is the polite thing to say when you walk in you don't say ciao because you're not on that level of intimacy with the people who work there so the polite formal greeting is up until midday and then you could just say salve or buenos era uh buena sera you can say if you're just even having a a late afternoon coffee you can i know it feels like you're saying good evening but you can still use that in the afternoon in italy okay let's start with what is in my opinion the best coffee and is the default coffee uh everywhere in italy is cafe which is an espresso okay it's a short black uh quite strong coffee uh now this word cafe it means coffee if you change it to two coffees the word doesn't change okay so un cafe cafe the espresso this is what i drink like it's short and black no sugar no milk nothing else now this is the standard default coffee in italy so if you go into a bar and you ask for un cafe they will often think if they see that you're a foreigner they will think oh no this poor person is confused and so they will check with you and say so if is it do you want just this is you want a normal coffee now you don't you won't hear the word espresso really i mean seldom do you hear the word espresso they will just sort of confirm with you if you ask for um cafe by saying now cafe normale is an espresso but if you're looking for what in many places in the world is considered cafe normale is a cafe americano in cafe americano now in cafe americano is a longer coffee in a big cup it's like one shot of coffee with a lot more water and so look if you're sitting down in a beautiful piazza you may prefer to get a cafe americano because it lasts longer often if you're if you're a foreigner this is the first question they'll ask you normally i find words that are the same in english are the most poorly pronounced by anglo-saxons for example we will often think we know how to say cappuccino but listen to how we say it cappuccino kappa almost as though there were an a after the p cappuccino cappuccino but it's also anglo-saxons sometimes often myself included forget about the staccato effect one must put on a word when there's a double letter like the double p in cappuccino it's not a cappuccino it's cappuccino cappucino same with a double espresso cafe hear that little p for the double letter cappuccino changes in the plural cappuccino cappuccino okay macchiato comes from the verb macchiare okay to stain in cafe macchiato is served in a small ceramic or glass cup and the espresso is being stained by a little milk or foam which is called skuma in italian so if you've ordered a cafe latte this is a milk coffee or you could say it is a cappuccino sensa skuma without foam maybe you're visiting it in winter and you would like una chocolate calda chocolata calda now if you say chocolato you're talking about a bar of chocolate if you say chocolate you're talking about the drink um so it's just best to to make that distinction and often when you order a hot chocolate they will ask you if you want it [Music] which is cream con panna if however you're visiting in summer i would highly recommend ordering a cafe cafe a coffee it's cold and sweet and it's shaken over ice and it's delicious so this is something you can find in most bars initially during the summer i've heard many foreigners trying desperately to describe what they want and something which might come in handy is to be able to say you want a big cup grande okay so that's a cup grande and uh croissants or cornetti are a big part of the italian breakfast and look you will go up to the little um cabinet that they have where they keep all the all the baked goods and sometimes it's hard to work out what the fillings are now the word fulfilling is repleno but the easiest way to ask what's inside is just to say causa uh often the responsible here will be quali which ones and then you will have to quickly give an indication of which baked good you are referring to so you could say cuelli those dietro behind cuelitero or in front or infondo in fondo and this is uh obviously accompanied by you frantically pointing out what you want questi for something that's close to you these for something that's far away from you though when you ask for the filling you will hear them rattle off the flavors very quickly so be ready now for just a plain croissant you will hear vuoto which means empty or same cliche then there will be chocolato chocolate uh crema is a very common one and so that's pastry cream then there is marmalade so you can have marmalade with fruits of the forest mara melata fruttini bosco marmelata di albicocque apricot jam often these days you will find wholemeal or whole wheat croissants filled with honey and this would be integrale almiele or a vegan croissant which is vegan so you have your order in your head you're memorizing it you're feeling strong and confident you go up to the barista and you say i would like or brendo i'll take and all he does is wave your way and quite abruptly say bisogna pagare prima a la casa but and you're just what what what was that and what he's telling you is that you have to pay first over at the cash register and this is the way that most bars initially work uh sometimes if it is if it's quiet or if it's a small little bar um they'll just they'll obviously they'll they'll make it for you first and and then you can pay afterwards but in a very busy uh cafe this is how the system works so you have to line up first pay at the little woman over in the corner with the cash register and then take your receipt which is scontrino over to the barissa and give that to him so that he can make your order often there will be a sign just behind the barista that says and so this is why they get so frustrated is because it says quite clearly that you have to go and pay first and bring back your scontrino the little receipt so when you go and queue up at the cash register uh the woman will ask you where you intend to consume your coffee are you going to have it at the counter standing up like with a lot of the italians or are you going to take up a table and the reason for this is that there is a different price in a lot of places it costs a little bit more to sit down at a table and uh often when when you're sitting down at a table there will be a waiter who will come to you and serve you so i guess you you're also paying for for that service um but uh when you get to the cash register she will ask you al banco okay at the counter or altavelo at the table or a third option might be a take away rarely but uh some some sometimes they offer it uh portara to take away and then once you pay you will often hear her say tengo los contrino el face vedera tenga los contrino keep your receipt and show it to the ballista lofacio vedera al balista then you go back to the barissa and he's not sure if you've understood the system so he might clarify with you and just check and say a gia pagato or avete ja pagato and this is just to say have you already paid or have you plural already paid and then he might also ask aveti los contrino aveta los contrino a los contrino do you have the receipt or it might be really busy or really quiet and you can't get anyone's attention in which case how would you say excuse me can we order do you know schoolsie which is the polite excuse me can i order ordinary uh or if you're not sure if it's the barista you might want to clarify and a polite way to do this is just to ask if they're the ones you should speak to about ordering a coffee and this would sound like pos can i ask you formal for coffees okay let's do a test i'm the ballista and you're coming up to me and you're going to ask for uh two cappuccinos one espresso and two cornetti one chocolate and one with cream what would that sound like start with voire or perendo [Music] yep yeah did you get it how did you go normally normally chocolate now in rome they actually give you a complimentary little glass of water of bottled water either still or sparkling with your coffee just to help wash it down they don't always do this in other parts officially um so and sometimes they'll make you pay for it but anyway it's worth always asking i think because yeah sometimes it's included for free so for the advanced students how would you say could i have a glass of water please [Music] okay this would sound like portray portray that's the conditional could i have aveda um and then you will hear them ask you if you want still or sparkling this can sound uh in two ways one way would be licia o quesada lisa or gazata or naturale or fritzante naturale or fritzante now the barista might make your coffee but there might be someone else who's looking after the baked goods so after he takes your order for the coffee he might then say for the croissants you need to ask a la ragazza the girl or a la senora the woman of the boy okay you've decided perhaps to eat your cornetti at the counter and you're you've just got like marmalade all down your chin or your companion has made quite a mess and perhaps you're searching for a napkin uh you might be looking around and they might say to you oh do you need something else the advanced students how would that sound do you need something else [Music] do you need something do you have need of qualcos this is a abbreviated so it comes from the word qualcosa something in this case you might like to go into the past and you might like to say i was looking for a napkin not charcoal you could say charcoal but this is the present to look for charcavo i was looking for chercavo un tovallo note that while in english we could only use the past progressive i was looking stavo in italian you can use the imperfect tense to describe this same action that was happening just seconds ago ah i was looking czech carver another question you probably want to ask uh in a bar in the morning uh is to use the toilet and uh what would this sound like can i use the the toilet bathroom [Music] usually in a bar they have this lot because they they're quite wary of of tourists who are just coming through and wanting to just use a toilet without actually buying anything so you might hear chivola chivole la chiave or they will ask you to go and ask at the at the um cash register um and that will sound like okay now it is occupied then you go back to the woman at cash register and you ask can i take or get the key for the bathroom how would that sound can i get the key for the bathroom [Music] after you've had your coffee you might decide oh you know what we actually need a bottle of water because we're going to be walking around all day now this would sound like um and they will always ask you still or sparkling and usually the woman behind the counter will just indicate that you should get it out yourself from the fridge and this how would it sound you can take it directly from the fridge if you like me and you do like your vegetable juices fortunately initially now they are doing this quite quite often in a lot of bars around the country and so the word for uh fruit or vegetable juice is chain three four the the distinction here is quite uh important because the this conversation i've heard go on with with foreigners in a barista not understanding each other so this is how it sounds right so first you want to ask fatih because uh singular is chain 3 and plural plural do you guys do juices uh often what you might hear is no we don't do that but we have um like packaged juice you know juice in a bottle or uh in a carton and they might this might sound like no abia ranch is like full of sugar and uh so you're like no that's not exactly what i was after but they might say that they do unespremota an espresso and this is a freshly squeezed orange juice but you know there's so much sugar even in orange juice so normally i'm just like okay thank you you might want to ask about milk uh and you might want to ask if they have soy milk and how would you say do you guys have soy milk you might not be able to have dairy or gluten so in this case a phrase that could be useful is sono whether you're male or female sono intolerante and then you can put in whatever you want perhaps you're a tea drinker perhaps you're going in the afternoon and you'd like a nice tea if you're going for an infusion or a herbal tea usually not caffeinated it's una tisana but a normal black tea is ana when you order tea initially they'll usually ask you if you would like some honey with it so this would sound like voile del miele if you put del in front of something it means some some honey so del miele would you like some honey now if you've been uh at a table perhaps the uh waiter hasn't come to you and you just want to go up to the cash register and you need to you need to go you're in a rush and these italians are taking so long so you're you're going to the cash register to the counter where you pay and uh you would want to say uh i have to pay or i would like to pay devo pagare i have to pagare when you say this you will usually hear cos you guys what did you guys praise oh what did you guys take what did you guys uh get basically or they might ask uh where were you sitting where were you guys sitting advanced students how did you say that where were you guys sitting [Music] is the past for you guys the plural okay or singular if you are a male if she is speaking to you and you are a male or if she is speaking to you and you are a female era so the era comes from essere and it's the past so it's like where you were where you were sitting then the sitting is the ceduto perhaps it's a beautiful day and you'd like to sit outside but you want to make sure that someone's going to come out to you or that it's possible even because you're just getting coffee you're not ordering a whole meal in that case how would you say can we sit outside can we sit outside is the verb and then we put chi because it's us outside or for the singular can i can i sit outside and usually they'll just wave you out and say arrival the waiter will come to you you might hear terrible news okay the the croissants have finished they are over or these days you're also likely to hear senora signore okay you have to put your mask on because if you're in a bar you have to be wearing a mask unless you're literally sipping your coffee but while you're ordering you have to have the mask the bathroom is only for customers i usually like to ask uh just so there's no confusion and they don't think i'm just trying to use their toilet without uh consuming anything so i will say prima diortinare posses okay so i'll put in two little uh sort of challenges for the advanced students how would you say uh let's go and have breakfast at the cafe before the croissants run out go [Music] and the answer is if you're an advanced student you will have heard of the congentivo now the conjunctivo happens when something is uncertain it's not exactly fat you're talking often about a hypothetical so you're talking about before the uh the croissants run out so they haven't actually run out so there is sort of uncertainty and therefore we need the conjunctivo so so normally you would say the the croissants finish or run out but we are talking uh in the uncertain hypothetical case in which drama of all dramas the coordinating run out but they haven't run out right now we're just talking about that hypothetical in which case finis conor changes to and it's just a little thing but yeah you might as well uh learn how to to speak properly um italians will certainly appreciate it as you know uh i often like to make friends with my local uh cafe or or patisserie and so i will ask them if i'm on holiday somewhere like i was when i when i was in sicily i did this just the other month i just asked them to put aside uh cornetti for me or svoyetele which are delicious which is worth learning this phrase for because generally the really good baked uh sweets run out very early in the morning because the locals will get there so uh you might like to ask them to put aside for you uh sir what your favorite bait goodyear croissant or your or whatever yours for your taylor so how would you say seeing as your croissants are so good and run out early tomorrow morning could you guys please put two aside for us just in case we arrive late oh my goodness such a hard phrase okay don't get overwhelmed just look for the words that are familiar so probably uh you know croissants okay cornetti because it's plural cornetto singular cornetti plural your croissants okay so you're as in uh the plural void so ivostri ivostri cornetti uh you probably know the word good or you've probably heard it before buono okay porno uh but in this case we have uh multiple croissants so we change buono to buoni warni uh run out we just did before which is finis cono finis connor run out in the plural early you might have seen presto presto uh next tomorrow you definitely have heard of tomorrow i'm sure domani nomani and martina the morning matina uh please that's another word you're probably familiar with perfect uh and then let's go down to the next word that or the last word that you probably have heard of is late tarty okay let's hear the full phrase now visto que ivostri cornetti sono cosiboni e finiscono presto domani matina potreste perfevore meter chene oh such a hard phrase but let's break it down i'm sure you can do this okay so seeing as your croissants are so good vistoke okay visto seeing as visto to put okay the chair is for us the net is of them and the the way is to so it's it's all sort of mixed up but it's saying to put two of them for us in in the case arrivassimo which is the conjunctivo imperfetto arrivassimo in the hypothetical case that we were to arrive late 30 don't worry visto hernetti presto domani okay you ready you can do this i believe in you it's just break it down it's like everything in life you just break it down don't think about the whole phrase just think about it in the little pieces i know it sounds overwhelming but just take it one day at a time and remember even when you're confused you're still taking on information i remember repeating phrases i couldn't understand at all but if you don't get impatient and just let the words wash over you repeat the phrases with me i promise one day it will all click together and you'll realize how much has actually been absorbed by your brain even when you felt like nothing was going in uh in this particular episode i've left those pauses for you to try and have a guess at what the phrase might be because this is important often when you're learning at home and you're not living in the country you are very passive because everything is given to you you you just sit with a teacher or sit with a an audio book and you hear the answer but it's important to hazard a guest to make an attempt because this is what will happen in real life when you're in italy you're at the bar and you you don't have the answer you have to throw yourself in and try to start speaking this is the most important thing i got myself to a fairly intermediate level of italian before i ever lived in the country so you can do it too and i hope that this has been uh well somewhat helpful and then they will say macharto of course we're so glad that you want to come back and be fidelia be be loyal to our cafe and so and then you can say thank you you're so kind which would be for a male graze to the the male if you're speaking to a male or grazie you're speaking to a female ah and then you're just so exhausted from like trying to perfect your grammar and understand everything that you go need to go and have another coffee but it's just so exciting when you when you actually manage to succeed at that whole transaction you get the coffee you want and you get the filling you want and and uh it's a it's a great way to then uh make new friends or at least have a little bit of a chat with the people at the bar while they're having their coffee i was thinking of doing a video actually on all the little polite things that you can say initially to basically make someone forgive your poor italian or just to be just to be respectful because i feel like today i don't know people underestimate the power of of good manners and being courteous and being kind and i often get asked how did you end up in that situation how did you end up being invited into that family's home or how did you end up uh getting that discount and i i truly think most of it's because of manners and that's uh that's how my my parents have the same uh response from people in in in france and in uh in spain and and uh i just think people appreciate manners and it's a way when you're a foreigner when you don't necessarily have language in in in in common um it's it's a great way to say i i come come in peace i respect who you are i respect where i am there's this book i once read called the importance of manners and i think the world needs to read that book right now uh because it just uh people underestimate how your day can completely change uh with a little please thank you and uh forgive me sorry excuse me do you agree do you believe in manners would you believe that manners are just uh formalities uh well i hope this was useful i hope you get the coffee you wanted and uh just remember for those of you who had your vacation your holiday cancelled this is extra time to get really really good at your italian uh do give it a little thumbs up and do subscribe and i don't know do just have hope i i know what it feels like to feel totally overwhelmed by language i felt like that too and i don't feel like it anymore i wish you a beautiful weekend and i actually today was just in a field picking olives for hours so quite different uh from the the lovely elegant bar in piazza de la republica in florence uh but uh that's what's coming up next is a is a harvest episode okay [Music] [Music] oh [Music]

Channel: Kylie Flavell

Views: 365,139

Keywords: coffee, Italy, learn Italian, free online italian course, Italian language course, move to Italy, order coffee in Italian

Id: J8zXec-Or0g

Length: 38min 56sec (2336 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 23 2020