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咖啡 (kā fēi) — coffee

Definition

noun
coffee
Measure word · 杯

Examples

  • 咖啡。
    Wǒ zǎo shàng hē le yì bēi kā fēi.
    I drank a cup of coffee in the morning.
  • 咖啡。
    Tā xǐ huan hē kā fēi.
    He likes to drink coffee.
  • 咖啡。
    Wǒ qù chāo shì mǎi kā fēi.
    I go to the supermarket to buy coffee.

Origin

Single-morpheme word
构词法gòucífǎ
音译yīnyìTransliteration

The characters spell the sound of a foreign word; their individual meanings play no part.

咖kā
啡fēi

These characters only spell the foreign sound; 咖啡 has no independent meanings here.

Sound-only characters

Most characters — around four in five — are built this way: one part hints at the meaning, the other at the pronunciation.

Meaning part形符xíngfú
口口kǒumouth
Sound part声符shēngfú
加
加jiā咖gā
The sound has drifted apartThe sound part was a clue two thousand years ago — it often still helps, but not always.

The left part is 口, showing a mouth, and the right part is 加, which gives the sound jiā.

Open 咖 →

Most characters — around four in five — are built this way: one part hints at the meaning, the other at the pronunciation.

Meaning part形符xíngfú
口口kǒumouth
Sound part声符shēngfú
非
非fēi啡
Same sound today

啡 combines 口 (mouth) with 非, which supplies the sound.

Grammar

Appears in
HSK 3.0 Level 2HSK 2.0 Level 21000 Most Frequent Chinese WordsBeverages2000 Most Frequent Chinese Words3000 Most Frequent Chinese Words

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