Let's Have a Coffee! The Hidden Duration of Words

"Let's have a coffee" sounds like an innocent invitation. In Switzerland, however, the implied duration changes completely depending on which side of the country you're on.

For me, the word coffee smells of a moka pot on a gas stove. That is how I came to know it during the years I lived in Italy. Since then, it has never meant just a drink. It is memory, ritual, time sedimented.

If there is one book I keep returning to when I think about language and translation, it is Umberto Eco’s Mouse or Rat? Translation as Negotiation (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2003). I first read it during my linguistics studies in Mantua—in its original Italian edition, Dire quasi la stessa cosa—and I still recommend it to anyone interested in languages. Eco reminds us of something easily overlooked: translation is not about finding perfect equivalents, but about negotiating meaning. The title itself points to this challenge: between a mouse and a rat, between one word and another, translation begins in the space of uncertainty.

Take a seemingly harmless sentence: “Shall we meet for a coffee?”

In the Italian-speaking world, it is a small masterpiece of functional ambiguity. It may genuinely mean: let’s go and have a coffee. But it can also mean: let’s talk properly, let’s see each other again, let’s keep in touch — or, in its most diplomatic version, let’s end this conversation without causing any damage.

Coffee is the pretext, not the plan.

And above all, it is brief.

An espresso at the bar. Two sips. Three minutes. Just enough time for a quick exchange, almost a ritual. It requires no planning, no major investment of time. It is a door left ajar, not an appointment fixed in the diary.

Translating time

Eco uses this very example to show how, when the cultural context changes, so does the implicit duration of a sentence.

In the English-speaking world, he observes, an invitation for coffee tends to become something more structured. You sit down, you talk, you make time. It is no longer a brief aside, but a shared moment.

And this is where his argument meets my own experience between Italy, Italian-speaking Switzerland and German-speaking Switzerland.

Some places continue to speak to us long after we've stopped living in them. Cremona, Italy, is one of those places for me. I spent my university years here, and some rituals have remained unchanged: an espresso in the piazza, time slowing down, the quiet recognition of a place that has changed just as much as I have. In linguistics, meaning never exists in isolation. It emerges from context. Perhaps places work the same way. Returning to them means reading them anew, through the person we've become. And that's how a coffee stops being just a coffee. It becomes memory, ritual—a quiet act of translation between past and present.

When coffee makes it into the diary

This is where the German-speaking world tells a different story.

Here, "Let’s meet for a coffee" rarely refers to just a quick catch-up.

I still remember the first few times I suggested it in Zurich, carrying with me the effortless spontaneity I had picked up in Italy: "Let’s grab a coffee sometime."

The reply never changed: "Sure. When?"

And it wasn't just a polite response.

By the time the question had been asked, a diary had already opened. A date. A time. Perhaps even a café. The coffee wasn't an open invitation anymore—it was a plan.

I, meanwhile, was still speaking symbolically.

What I really meant was simply: I'd like to see you again.

More than coffee

This is where the real cultural shift begins.

In Italy—and by extension, in Italian-speaking Switzerland—coffee is a serious affair. Just a brief one.

A quick espresso at the bar. Dark, intense, over in a couple of sips. The Marzocco hisses in the background, producing what feels like more energy than caffeine. It's fast, almost ritualistic.

"Shall we grab a coffee?" isn't really about coffee.

It's a way of saying: I'd like to see you—but I don't need your afternoon.

North of the Alps, the rhythm changes. Coffee is often filtered, larger, something to savour rather than swallow.

It's no longer a quick espresso. It's something to linger over. And the coffee lasts as long as the conversation.

Even ordering coffee requires translation

The first misunderstandings begin at the café. Because even coffee has its own vocabulary.

From Palermo to Airolo, asking for a caffè needs no explanation. You'll be served an espresso, usually with a small glass of water. In Zurich, however, ordering a Kaffee will most likely get you a larger, milder coffee. And in Geneva?

The word is the same.

The ritual isn't.

It's in these tiny moments that the distance quietly reappears. So even now, I still pause before ordering. Not because I'm looking for the best coffee, but because there's nothing quite as embarrassing as ordering the wrong one with complete confidence.

Translation Is a Negotiation

This is where Eco's insight comes into its own.

Translation isn't about finding perfect equivalents. It's about deciding what to preserve.

The relational intention?

The lightness?

The precision?

The truth is, you rarely get to keep all three.

A literal translation can create expectations you never intended. Or sound frustratingly vague where the other person expects clarity.

In the end, this isn't really about coffee. It's about time, availability and intention.

The difference between a quick espresso at the bar and a coffee pencilled into the diary isn't simply linguistic. It's a different way of entering into a relationship.

Key insight

Translation is never just about transferring words from one language to another. It also means interpreting expectations, cultural conventions and the different ways people create and negotiate relationships.

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Martina Knecht

Text and images © Martina Knecht

This article is part of the essay series Quasi la stessa cosa: Brief observations on how words shape the world around us (2026).

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