Another vote for express, from le Petit Robert:
Express: n. m. Cafe express: fait a la vapeur, a l'aide d'un percolateur.
Plus court: Boire deux express

Two French friends just answered. Here are their answers:

Un café ;-)

More seriously:
- Un express is now rarely used, but it is the correct French word.
- Un espresso is not unfrequent, and is one of the italian words that
French people can pronounce (esPRESso)
- Indeed one hears something likes un espress?


Non, tu dirais : « Un expresso, s’il vous plaît », ou alors « Une noisette » avec un tout petit peu de lait, ou alors « Un crème » avec beaucoup de lait. En belge (seulement), tu dirais « Un lait russe » pour du lait avec très peu de café dedans, etc.

<b>Express</b> is what people say for the coffee, even though the official name is <i>espresso</i>. Singular and plural are the same for express. Nobody would say <i>espress</i> unleth they have a thpeech impediment.

Actually, it is far more common to hear people order "deux cafés" and then it is the waiter who yells back to the bar "deux express". "Café" said by a French person means espresso; if you say it with a foreign accent, you are likely to be interrogated by a waiter in a tourist area about what kind of coffee you mean. They have brought an espresso too many times only to be asked 'can I have some <i>du lait</i> with it'?

I think Kerouac has nailed it, and I can hear the serveur calling the order back to the bar. In my mind's ear, the word is indeed "express".

The interrogation as to the customer's intention is one of my little amusements. I use it as an indicator of how well my French is going that day. I am sure that every French native would recognise my accent as foreign, but there is a level that I can reach where it seems that I must be sufficiently au fait with French ways that when I order a café, I get what a French person would get.

Boy, not in the central Parisian neighborhoods where I have stayed. It has always been pronounced "espress", however it is spelled. My wife has a "cafe' creme" (sorry about the accents) and I have a "gran' espress". Maybe all the waiters are from the south, like the people who say "Ouai" rather than "oui."

I always assumed that is like Spanish speakers from the Caribbean here in the US who say "Gracia" without the final "s" or Argentinians who say "cabajo" instead of "caballo".

Anyway, I always get my coffee and only wish that "grand" meant a little larger than it actually is.

"Ouais" is the Parisian pronunciation of "oui" -- not at all from the south.

>"deux express"<

Is that pronounced with <i>liaison</i>?

Wow. More confused than ever. Even my own French friends responded with differing views. I think I'm now favoring "deux express."

DL, I know Cara's books have been translated to French, but I wonder about the quality of the translation (have no idea who managed that part of the publication process - it could be brilliant for all I know). But no, she's not a tennis player from Zimbabwe - she lives in San Francisco!

To add to the confusion, here are some more answers from Paris:

personnellement, je commande : un "café serré" dans les établissements que je fréquente. Parfois j'insiste avec un "café très serré à l'italienne".
les garçons annoncent " Un serré !"

Il se peut qu'on dise espresso ou expresso avec ou sans l'accent tonique, les Français ne sont pas doués pour les langues étrangères, même s'ils ont le palais développé...



La prononciation juste serait un express mais de fait le x est doux ce qui donne un flou espress.



I would order: un café. In France, café = espresso, you don’t need to be more specific. You can also say: un expresso ou un express, it’s very common. In any case, you have to pronounce the “x” à la française.
If you really want a coffee in the Italian espresso style, you have to specify: serré.

I thought when you order a 'cafe', you get an expresso?

I too rememeber waiters saying to the 'barista' un espress. To me it sounded more like an 's' than 'x'.

I suddenly remembered this thread when I came across these photos from an autoroute service station.

http://anyportinastorm.proboards.com...1&page=1#95698

She LIVES in San Francisco? Now? CALL her, for crying out loud.

Due Expressi per favore..

For cryin' out loud to you, Dukey, why would I call her? She doesn't speak much French and she's the original source of all the errors in the book! And that's not a slam - she's a friend of mine and has built a lovely career with these books, but it's up to editors and proofreaders to take care of details like this.

You must be proof-reading Murder in the Palais Royale
that is coming out in March?

Yes, cigale. Also proofed the reprint of Murder in the Marais.

StCirq, will your proof make a huge difference from the copy I have? Maybe I need to buy the new copy?

No, Mimi. No need to buy a new copy. I wasn't editing it, just proofreading. The main thing will be the French words (and Italian and German) will be spelled correctly this time around, and a host of typos in English will be fixed, and the names of streets and stores, etc., in Paris will be correct now. Nothing that most readers would even notice, I shouldn't think.