For those new to Taiwan, 寄杯 jì bēi is what you’ll hear in convenience stores if you want to take advantage of a multi-cup-of-coffee discount, but you only need one cup now. The remaining cups will be “on hold” and you can pick them up at a later time.
Today a clerk asked me how to say it in English, and I was stumped. I looked online and all I got were long, drawn out explanations as I wrote above (中英物語 / 中翻英 / Chinese to English Classroom / Chtoen).
Google Translate renders it literally “send a cup” but that doesn’t really explain it.
Does anyone know of a succint way to express 寄杯 in English–or is it more like a mysterious 成語 that requires a lengthy explanation to get the full meaning?
Great question! There’s no exact equivalent in English, but a succinct way to explain 寄杯 might be: “prepaid coffee credit” or “coffee in storage.” For casual conversation, you could say: “I’ve got a few prepaid coffees on hold here.” It’s one of those culturally unique terms that needs a bit of context to fully convey.
This is a very good example of the power of AI. I know exactly what this means but might have spent days coming up with a good translation.
It is also a good example of how inferior Google Translate is. ‘Send’ is a literal translation of 寄 and flat out wrong. In this context, 寄 means ‘to deposit’ or ‘place something temporarily’ as in 寄賣 ‘sell on consignment’.
AI is automating tiresome mental tasks for us in powerful ways just like a calculator saves us the bother of doing arithmetic in our head. More philosophically, it is alienating us from mental labor. That is both liberating and terrifying.
in Italian we call it caffe’ sospeso, literally Suspended coffee. You pay for 2, you only drink one and the other is given to either someone in need or to you at a later date.
If Trump banned purchase of fresh coffee in convenience stores I would vote for him.
It’s the single biggest global issue, bigger than global warming and toxic masculinity.
Why should I have to wait for people too lazy to make their own coffee? When did Taiwanese suddenly need coffee of a morning? Drink oolong, or pu’er or lapsang souchong like your ancestors did.
Why? Sometimes people want to have coffee while they’re outside! And you’re presumably doing something in the convenience store too — why should people have to wait because you’re too lazy to do whatever it is yourself? Brewing your own beer, or cooking your own lunch, or whatever.
Besides, I don’t recall ever being significantly held up in a convenience store by someone buying coffee. The clerks usually handle it pretty efficiently, just pressing the button then serving the next customer. It’s always the ones paying bills or trying to do something with their phone that take forever.
