Words for Coffee Around the World

Have you ever wondered how to say "coffee" in different languages or needed to know how to order coffee while traveling internationally? This listing includes the words for "coffee" in over 60 different languages from around the world.

(Note: Many of these words have been Romanized.)

Afrikaans: koffie (pronounced coffee)

Albanian: kafe (pronounced KA-fey)

Amharic: buna (pronounced boona)

Arabic: kahioa or ahua (In Egypt and some other ares, coffee is typically served with sugar. To order it without sugar, say “ahua sada.”)

Armenian: surch (pronounced suurch) or sourdj

Basque: kafea or akeuta

Belarusian: kava

Bengali/Bangla: café (pronounced ka-FEY)

Bulgarian: kafe

Catalan: cafe

Chinese (Cantonese): ga feh

Chinese (Mandarin): kafei (both consonants are in "first tone" / are high and even in pronunciation)

Creole: kafe

Croatian: kava

Czech: kava (pronounced kaava) or kafe

Danish: kaffe (pronounced kah-FEY)

Dutch: koffie (pronounced coffee)

English: coffee

Esperanto: kafo

Estonian: kohv

Ethiopian Semitic (spoken in Ethiopia and Eritrea): bunna, buni or bun (Coffee beans got their name from the combination of “Kaffa,” a major Ethiopian coffee-producing area, and “bun.”)

Filipino/Tagalog: kape

Finnish: kahvi

French: café

Galician: café

Georgian: qava or chai

German: der Kaffee (pronounced kah-FEE; masculine; the “K” is capitalized because all German nouns are capitalized)

Greek: kafés (pronounced ka-FACE)

Haitian Creole: kafe (pronounced kah-FEY)

Hawaiian: kope

Hebrew: ka-feh

Hindi: kofi (pronounced KOH-fee)

Hungarian: kavé (pronounced KAH-vey)

Irish: caife

Italian: caffe (pronounced KA-fee)

Icelandic: kaffii

Indonesian: kopi

Japanese: koohii

Korean: keopi or ko-pyi

Latvian: kafija (pronounced ka-fee-ya)

Lithuanian: kava

Luxembourgish: Kaffi (like in German, all nouns are capitalized in Luxembourish)

Macedonian: kafe

Malay: kawah or koppi

Maltese: kafe

Norwegian: kaffe

Ojibwe (language of the Anishinabek Native Americans): muckadaymashkikiwabu (literally, "black medicine water)

Persian: qéhvé

Polish: kawa (pronounced kava)

Portuguese: café

Romanian: cafea (pronounced café-ah)

Russian: kofe (pronounced koe-fee)

Serbian: kafa

Slovak: kava (pronounced kah-va)

Slovenian: kave

Spanish: el café (masculine)

Sinhalese (Sri Lanka): kopi

Swahili: kahawa

Swedish: kaffe

Taiwanese: ka fei (same as Mandarin)

Tamil (Sri Lanka): kapi-kottai or kopi

Thai: kafea or ca-fea

Turkish: kahve (pronounced kah-VEY)

Ukrainian: kavy or kava

Urdu: coffee

Vietnamese: ca phe (pronounced ka FEY) or cafe

Wolof: kafe

Welsh: coffi (pronounced ko-FEE)

Yiddish: kave

Zulu: ikhofi