Grammar ~19 min of the core left

Order in a café and make a suggestion

After this lesson you can

I can order food and a drink, answer a follow-up question and suggest going somewhere.

Start the lesson Core 17–19 min · steps: 6 · optional: +2

Declared core time. Two of the core blocks carry no figure at all, so the real lesson is longer than this sum.

Grammar

3 min

Ordering in a café in English is shorter than you think. The most common form has no verb at all:

A coffee, please. you order one coffee
Two teas, please. you order two cups of tea
A sandwich and an apple juice, please. you order food and a drink

please at the end is not just decoration: without it, the phrase sounds like a command.

What the waiter will say:

Anything else? Do you want something more?
That's all, thanks. I don't want anything more.
Here you are. the waiter gives you your order

Suggest going somewhere — two ways:

Why don't we go to a café? a suggestion in the form of a question
Let's go to a café. a suggestion: you and I go together

Let's is a fixed phrase: learn it as a whole. The imperative (the form for orders and instructions) comes in lesson 22.

You will learn more polite ways to ask later: Can I have a coffee, please? — lesson 20, where can comes in; I'd like a coffee — at A2. For now, A coffee, please is quite enough and sounds natural.

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Common learner errors

written for your language
1

An order without please

✗ A coffee.

✓ A coffee, please.

In many languages, for example Chinese or Hindi, a polite tone or a polite verb form is enough, and a word like "please" is not used much in a café. In English, a missing please is noticed at once.

2

take for ordering

✗ I take a coffee.

✗ Can I take a coffee?

✓ A coffee, please.

French (je prends un café), Spanish (tomo un café), Italian (prendo un caffè) and German (ich nehme einen Kaffee) use the verb "take" for ordering, but in English take is not the word here. For now, say A coffee, please; in lesson 20 you will learn Can I have….

3

Counting drinks

✗ Two tea, please.

✗ three coffee

✓ Two teas

three coffees. Learners whose language has no plural ending (Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Indonesian) often leave out -s. In a café, drinks are counted as cups, so the plural is right here, even though tea is uncountable (lesson 15).

Pronunciation

3 min

The intonation of a request — a fall with a small rise at the end (fall-rise). A flat intonation sounds like a demand.

A coffee, please ↘↗

please in natural speech is unstressed and short; a long, stretched "pleeease" sounds like begging.

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Text

3 min

Good morning. A coffee and a sandwich, please.

Anything else?

Yes, an apple juice, please.

Here you are.

Thanks. Let's sit next to the window.

Reading aloud

Exercises

8–10 min

1. Word order.

[ please / a coffee / , ] · [ we / why / to a café / don't / go / ? ]

Show the answers
A coffee, please. Why don't we go to a café?

2. Matching.

  1. Anything else?
  2. Here you are.
  3. Let's go to a café.
Show the answers
`Anything else?` — `That's all, thanks.`; `Here you are.` — `Thanks.`; `Let's go to a café.` — `Good idea.`

3. Gap fill.

  1. tea, please
  2. apple juice, please
  3. coffees, please
Show the answers
A, An, Two.

4. Multiple choice.

Show the answers
A coffee, please. / Let's go.
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Summary

Covered

  • ordering without a verb
  • please
  • three things the waiter says
  • Let's and Why don't we

Next — lesson 17: prices and shopping.

End of the core

The lesson counts as done once the exercises are done. Everything after this is optional.

Lesson 17

optional

Vocabulary for your deck

12 words
  • menu /ˈmenjuː/ a list of the food and drinks in a café
  • sandwich /ˈsænwɪdʒ/ two pieces of bread with cheese, meat, etc. between them
  • cake /keɪk/ a sweet food made from flour, eggs, sugar and butter
  • glass /ɡlɑːs/ a cup made of glass for water or juice, with no handle
  • cup /kʌp/ a small bowl with a handle for tea or coffee
  • waiter /ˈweɪtə/ a person who brings food and drinks in a café
  • else /els/ more, other (Anything else?)
  • all /ɔːl/ everything (That's all.)
  • idea /aɪˈdɪə/ a thought or a plan (Good idea!)
  • sit /sɪt/ to be on a chair; to take a seat
  • take /teɪk/ to get something in your hand and have it
  • give /ɡɪv/ to let someone have something; to put it in their hand

Writing

A dialogue of four lines: you order, and someone answers you.

Example

— A tea and a cake, please. — Anything else? — No, that's all, thanks. — Here you are.

Checklist

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Practise this lesson in the other sections

Dictationbased on this lesson Write down what you hear. The check shows every word that differs, and how. Write the dictation Reading aloudbased on this lesson Read the lesson text aloud — speech recognition highlights the words it did not catch. Read the text aloud Reading and listeningA1–C1 Texts at every level with comprehension questions; the transcript opens after you answer. Try it

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