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- Topic: Italian >
- "Un caffè doppio, grazie"
72 Comments
[Belatedly!] Sorry John, but that's not an espresso maker, it's a moka pot. But it is (I believe) what most Italians use to make coffee at home, and it does make something that approximates to espresso. If you rent holiday accommodation in Italy it's what is usually provided, unless you ask specially for a filter coffee maker. But it doesn't exert enough pressure to make a proper espresso - for that you need a machine with a pump, which is what cafés and the like use to make coffee.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Espresso "Espresso (/ɛˈsprɛsoʊ/, Italian: [esˈprɛsso]) is coffee brewed by forcing a small amount of nearly boiling water under pressure through finely ground coffee beans"
402
You can ask for a "ristretto", a very strong coffee brewed in half the quantity of water of an espresso
437
caffè doppio è usato per ordinare al bar o al ristorante due espressi in una sola tazza
202
I have been led to believe that you should ask for 'un caffe' in Italy and never an espresso.
It could be reasonable to say "thanks" instead of "please" in English. If you and a friend were at a coffee shop and your friend said "I'm going to go get another coffee, would you like anything?" You could respond "A double espresso, thanks."
This could be meant/interpreted as either "thanks for offering", "thanks in advance for getting it" or a combination of the two.
1345
If you go and order un caffè you'll ALWAYS get an espresso. It's just the way it's called there. No need to get angry about one sentence, learning is failing, at least it made you remember ;)
1317
Espresso is a "foreigner" word. We say only, in a bar, "un caffé - un caffé doppio (raro) - un caffé ristretto - un caffé lungo (very rare)- un caffé macchiato - marocchino, schiumato, tazza grande, tazza piccola ... five italians in a bar, five different coffees ! Moka pot is only for home.
591
....so now we know! I'd say that that is the definitive last word on coffee in Italy. Thanks!!
929
There's something wrong with the audio; it keeps cutting off mid sentence and it isn't my computer that's malfunctioning. I can't hear the entire thing.
Unless you are Turkish or Greek, that type of coffee is not what most people would call "ordinary black coffee". Some people would call Nescafé (ugh!) "ordinary", some might mean filter coffee, or coffee from a cafetière. All these exist in Italy, but when an Italian talks about coffee s/he usually means what Europeans and Americans call espresso (including the sort made in a Moka pot). Surely the term "espresso" has wide currency outside Italy? It's certainly universal in the UK.
There's a few things going on in your question, so bear with me.
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Adjective changing according to noun does not mean that the last letter of the noun is copied over to the adjective.
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Rather, it means that adjectives and nouns must agree in gender (feminine or masculine) and in number (singular or plural).
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How to find out the gender of your noun? Look at the ending or consult a dictionary. There are many patterns, i.e. -o = masc, -a = fem, but there are just as many exceptions.
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-e can be a marker for the masculine and the feminine:
il fiore (flower)
la stagione (season) -
The plural for ALL nouns and adjectives (m and f) ending in -e is -i:
il studente, gli studenti (the student, male - the students)
la lezione, le lezioni (lesson - lessons) -
However, words that are accented on the last vowel are invariable. This means they have the same form in singular as in plural.
il caffè, i caffè
la città, le città (city - cities) -
But the adjective accompanying them will take the appropriate marker for the gender of your noun, as well as the plural marker:
il caffè freddo, i caffè freddi: the cold coffee/coffees
masculine -o becomes -i in plural
la grande città, le grandi città: the big city/cities
feminine -e becomes -i in plural (see point 5 above)
- So, if you know that caffè is masculine, the appropriate plural adjective would be 'doppi' (it gets an -i in plural form but as there is already an 'i' in the base form, this is not doubled). 'Doppie' is for feminine plural.
339
What is "a double coffee"???? Is that coffee w/a double shot of espresso??? (obviously, I am not a coffee drinker).
339
What is "a double coffee"???? Is that coffee w/a double shot of espresso??? (obviously, I am not a coffee drinker).