cà phê
Each syllable carries one of six tones; the mark on the vowel tells you which. How the six tones sound →
cà phê means coffee.
Meanings of cà phê in English
Noun
- coffee
- cà phê có liềninstant coffee
- cà phê dùng ngayinstant coffee
- cà phê hòa taninstant coffee
Words with cà phê
Example sentences with cà phê
- Bạn thích trà hay cà phê hơn? Do you prefer tea or coffee?
- Bạn muốn uống trà hay cà phê? Do you want tea or coffee?
- Tôi sẽ ăn món pudding cà phê. I will eat coffee flavored pudding.
- Bạn muốn uống cà phê hay trà? Do you want to drink coffee or tea?
- Tôi uống cà phê vào buổi sáng. I drink coffee in the morning.
- Tôi hầu như không uống cà phê. I seldom drink coffee.
- Bạn thích uống cà-phê hay uống trà? Would you rather have a cup of coffee or a cup of tea?
- Cà phê này không đủ nóng. This coffee is not hot enough.
Bilingual example sentences from Tatoeba (tatoeba.org, CC BY 2.0 FR).
Historical script (chữ Nôm / Hán)
Before the Latin alphabet (chữ Quốc ngữ) became standard, cà phê could be written as 咖啡. Today Vietnamese is written only in the Latin alphabet.
Etymology
Adapted from an earlier form trà phê (“coffee”) (Martini, 1958; Michaud et al., 2015), as attested in scholar Pétrus Ky's Cours d'annamite parlé [A course in spoken Annamese] (1894). This is a phono-semantic matching of French café (“coffee”), matching the first syllable with the existing Sino-Vietnamese word trà (“tea”); literally, this name could be interpreted as: “a kind of tea with the phê attribute” (whatever that attribute may mean).
Frequently asked questions
What does cà phê mean in English?
cà phê (noun) means "coffee".
How do you pronounce cà phê?
IPA: Hanoi [kaː˨˩ fe˧˧]; Saigon [kaː˨˩ fej˧˧]. Tones: cà — falling tone (huyền), phê — level tone (ngang).