drink coffee/have coffee (2025)

Hi,

What is the difference between two?

1. I want to have a cup of coffee.
2. I want to drink a cup of coffee.

Is there any 'tiny' difference between two?

The main difference is that "have" is much more common than "drink," particularly when talking about "a cup of coffee." Perhaps the reason is that the specific nature of the verb "drink" is unnecessary - what else would you do with a cup of coffee?

When talking about coffee, or any beverage, in general, we drink it, but we usually have a cup of coffee or tea or a bottle of soda.

I don't drink coffee.
Would you like to have a glass of iced tea?

I think it's that "I want to have a cup of coffee" includes all the process of "having a cup of coffee". (e.g. drink a bit --> rest a while --> drink again)
cause most of the time when people have a cup of coffee, they don't just drink the whole thing at once, but they drink a bit and enjoy time passing or have a little chat with someone else then drink again. so it takes time.
but "drink a cup of coffee" indicates only the action of drinking it. rather an instant thing.

It's just my opinion. but it makes sense.

Yes, in speech it is more common to have a rather unspecific verb and keep the main information in the noun when describing many activities.

I ate some cake. --> I had some cake.
I drank 2 pints of lager. --> I had 2 pints of lager.
I showered with cold water. --> I had a cold shower.
I walked for half an hour. --> I had a half-hour walk.

And do both drink and have work in these tenses?

When I entered his room, Tom drank/had his coffee.
When I entered his room, Tom was drinking/was having his coffee.
When I entered his room, Tom had drunk/had had his coffee.

Out of context:
1) When I entered his room, Tom drank/had was drinking/having coffee / some coffee / his coffee / a coffee.
2) When I entered his room, Tom was drinking/was having his coffee.
3) When I entered his room, Tom had drunk/had had his coffee.

Why doesn't (1) work? Because having or drinking coffee is not an instantaneous action that can take place at the moment I enter the room.

When I entered his room, Tom looked up. "Looking up" is an instantaneous action.
When I entered his room, Tom shot the kangaroo. Ok (grammatically, but perhaps not ethically ).
When I entered his room, Tom butchered a yak. Not ok. You can't butcher a yak in the time it takes to enter a room.

When I entered his room, Tom was butchering a yak. Ok.
Context tells us why there was a yak or a kangaroo in his room in the first place.

Enquiring Mind said:

Why doesn't (1) work? Because having or drinking coffee is not an instantaneous action that can take place at the moment I enter the room.

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"When I entered the room, Tome drank the glass of juice."

Wouldn't it work? For example, I entered the room, he saw me and drank the juice right away. Maybe he was supposed to drink it earlier and being scared, he drank it instantly so that I wouldn't get angry.

A glass of juice is (almost always) served cold. You can gulp it down in more or less the same time it takes for me to enter the room. Coffee is almost always drunk at higher than room temperature, and we like to savour it, to enjoy the taste over several consecutive sips.

Yes, of course it's possible to let your coffee get cold and then down it in one gulp, but in that case we would use a different verb than "had his coffee" or "drank his coffee", which tend to suggest that we are savouring the coffee in several sips for the pleasure of drinking it, rather than gulping it down in a hurry.

This is the problem with looking at sentences out of context: it's a wild goose chase of endless semantic and syntactic possibilities.

English teacher ( from Canada ) told me you can use 'get' in informal way for many many of those situations. After living there for a few years, i think it works pretty well.
Get a beer, get a coffee, get a whatsover...
What I'm not sure if it is 'get a cup of coffee' and 'get a glass of milk' or 'get a coffee' and 'get a milk' ( 'get a milk' sounds particularly weird to me)

In my native language it doesn't matter much ( quantifier, countable can be removed very often). It seems more important in English than the verb itself ( have, get, drink, sip, gobble...are all working in the end, with minor connotations, I suppose ). Still unclear to me.

Hope that makes sense.

revenote13 said:

I think it's that "I want to have a cup of coffee" includes all the process of "having a cup of coffee". (e.g. drink a bit --> rest a while --> drink again)
cause most of the time when people have a cup of coffee, they don't just drink the whole thing at once, but they drink a bit and enjoy time passing or have a little chat with someone else then drink again. so it takes time.
but "drink a cup of coffee" indicates only the action of drinking it. rather an instant thing.

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I rather like this view of the distinction. To have puts more emphasis on the thing being consumed, and the process. To drink puts more emphasis on the action.
Let me have a cup of coffee before you ask these questions.
>> This might involve going to the coffee station, etc., before the coffee can be consumed.
Let me drink my coffee before you ask these questions.
>> The coffee is on the desk in front of me.
[Disclaimer: This is just one example, and not intended to address any other situation.]
There is a distinction, but it is very subtle. And quite hard to explain, as this thread shows. 🙂

labadi said:

In my native language it doesn't matter much ( quantifier, countable can be removed very often).

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Thanks for the comment, @labadi. I'm curious what your native language is? A lot of us put this on our profile - it's not required, but it's helpful for giving context to each person's perspective.

abluter said:

You can't have your coffee and drink it (old proverb)

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😅

Damoetas said:

Thanks for the comment, @labadi. I'm curious what your native language is? A lot of us put this on our profile - it's not required, but it's helpful for giving context to each person's perspective.

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Native language is French. It was set up based on localisation at some point. It should be displayed as french now!

Thanks for notice.

The same holds true for food. It's far more common to talk about what you had for lunch then what you ate for lunch.

A: What did you have for lunch?
B: I had a ham sandwich.

Damoetas said:

I'm curious what your native language is? A lot of us put this on our profile - it's not required, but it's helpful for giving context to each person's perspective.

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Actually, it is required. See the terms and rules:

You must provide your native language, including your country or the variety you speak (eg: "English - Ireland" or "Mexican Spanish") for languages with multiple regions. Who you are and where you are from is very important to understanding any translations or other language information that you provide.

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kentix said:

The same holds true for food. It's far more common to talk about what you had for lunch then what you ate for lunch.

A: What did you have for lunch?
B: I had a ham sandwich.

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Hello, kentix.

I always wonder if this sentence makes sense in English when they can have the same meaning:
I had a few sandwiches for lunch, but I wasn't hungry, so I didn't eat anything.

labadi said:

English teacher ( from Canada ) told me you can use 'get' in informal way for many many of those situations. After living there for a few years, i think it works pretty well.
Get a beer, get a coffee, get a whatsover...

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Yes, but of course "get a beer/coffee/etc" ...and... "have a beer/coffee/etc" mean different things.

Let's have a beer. = Let's drink beer together.

Let's get a beer. = Let's go to the place where the beer is, and stay there and drink it, or bring it back here and drink it, or take it somewhere else and drink it... or even just get the beer and not drink it!

Kenny Chang said:

I always wonder if this sentence makes sense in English when they can have the same meaning:
I had a few sandwiches for lunch, but I wasn't hungry, so I didn't eat anything.

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Yes, it's what a native speaker would say, meaning that I had a few sandwiches with me for lunch, but didn't eat them.

Kenny Chang said:

I had a few sandwiches for lunch, but I wasn't hungry, so I didn't eat anything.

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Assuming you're talking about a place away from your house, like work or school or some hiking trip, I would say:

- I'd brought a few sandwiches for lunch, but I wasn't hungry, so I didn't eat them.

kentix said:

Assuming you're talking about a place away from your house, like work or school or some hiking trip, I would say:

- I'd brought a few sandwiches for lunch, but I wasn't hungry, so I didn't eat them.

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What I was thinking was:
Mom: What did you have for lunch at school today?
Me: We had a hamburger, some salads, and a carton of milk. But I wasn't that hungry, so I didn't eat too much.

Myridon said:

Me: I had a hamburger, some salad, and a carton of milk. But I wasn't that hungry, so I didn't eat all of it.
But again, it would be better not to use "had" because it suggests that you did eat it. It's almost like a garden path sentence where you think it's going to say one thing, but when you get to the end you have to correct yourself. Note that you drink milk so that's not included in "I didn't eat..." and we don't really know if you ate all of the hamburger and part of the salad, or part of the hamburger and all of the salad, or part of each.
"I didn't eat too much." can mean either "I didn't overeat. I didn't stuff myself." or "I didn't eat very much." so that's not clear.

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Thank you for your explanation.