<p>Jimmy's answer is good, but I want to offer one clarification.</p>

<p>To an English speaker, "coffee-coffee" sounds an awful lot like <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contrastive_focus_reduplication" rel="noreferrer">contrastive focus reduplication</a>. "this is coffee, but it's not COFFEE-coffee" might mean "this beverage has some but not all of the essential properties of coffee". However: Japanese doesn't <em>have</em> contrastive focus reduplication! That's not what's actually being said here. </p>

<p>Reduplication in Japanese is used primarily for mimetics (onomatopoeia, basically). Unlike with English's contrastive focus reduplication, you can't really apply "mimetic reduplication" to arbitrary Japanese nouns, so "<em>kōhī-kōhī</em>" (which is sort of a weird adjective-ified form of "coffee") sounds stranger to the Japanese ear than "COFFEE-coffee" sounds to the English ear. If I were to attempt an analogy, this might be somewhat like forming a strange derived adjective from coffee, as in "this coffee isn't very coffile".</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-11-21T22:19:33.803Z
Great clarification. Didn't think of that COFFEE-coffee part.
Jimmy
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-11-22T03:08:42.563Z
"this coffee isn't very coffile" did you mean "this coffee isn't very coffee"
Darjeeling
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-11-22T07:35:40.057Z
@Darjeeling No, I did mean "coffile", as a weird of use of [-ile](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-ile) as a marginally-productive adjectivizing suffix, a la "fissile", "prehensile", "labile", etc.
senshin
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-01-15T21:45:18.860Z
This is what I though when I saw the episode. It's not like something well defined, as the other girl herself asked: "what does it mean to coffee-coffee?"

It's just that it seemed that the first girl had made some nonsensical word to describe the coffee, as the word itself is not even explainable, but when the other girl tasted she simply agreed that it was not coffee-coffee.

I laughed.
Mateus Felipe
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-11-21T20:27:44.030Z
2017-11-22T00:00:39.703Z
2017-11-22T00:00:39.703Z
senshin
<p>There's no pun. She is using "coffee-coffee" as a made-up adjective to describe that the coffee she is drinking doesn't have properties of coffee, and as you can tell from her friend's response, it's not standard Japanese (she could've just said something like "This doesn't taste like coffee."). The subtitle uses the phrase as-is, but something more English could be something like "This isn't very coffee."</p>

<p>The gag of this skit is that Girl B drinks and agrees with the fictional word, despite no description of what it means. I feel this isn't supposed to be funny, but more closer to something the viewers can agree to, like when eating out with friends and trying to describe what you just ate/drank, but cannot find the right words for it (thus just saying something like "coffee-coffee"). </p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-11-21T19:56:06.113Z
Normally I add -y or -ee sound to a word to make this happen, but it wouldn't work well with Coffee. For instance, these donuts aren't very donut-y
giraffesyo
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-11-21T19:59:09.607Z
@MichaelMcQuade Yeah, I thought about doing that, but as you said, it doesn't work well with coffee :P
Jimmy
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-11-22T13:21:38.957Z
for some reason i found this scene funny, but i didnt understand what's going on this scen...
Gagantous
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-11-21T18:26:11.667Z
2017-11-21T18:26:11.667Z
Jimmy
<p>In Nichijou there is a scene where a random character says,</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>The coffee isn't very coffee coffee</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Is this a pun? What's the meaning of these sentences? Even her friend asks too.</p>

<p><a href="https://i.sstatic.net/hTLOu.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/hTLOum.jpg" alt="This coffee isn&#39;t very coffee coffee"></a>
<a href="https://i.sstatic.net/4Q0y8.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/4Q0y8m.png" alt="What does not coffee coffee even mean?"></a>
<a href="https://i.sstatic.net/OK4DTm.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/OK4DTm.png" alt="It&#39;s not coffee coffee!"></a></p>

<p>Relevant video on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIfigZMdwuQ" rel="nofollow noreferrer">YouTube</a></p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-11-21T15:15:17.227Z
which episode is this
Darjeeling
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-11-21T15:16:35.990Z
@Darjeeling i forgot, but it is on youtube, you could find it in my post
Gagantous
<nichijou>
What's the meaning of "The coffee isn't coffee coffee"?
# What's the meaning of "The coffee isn't coffee coffee"?
Posted by: username_0 on 2017-11-21
In Nichijou there is a scene where a random character says,

> The coffee isn't very coffee coffee

Is this a pun? What's the meaning of these sentences? Even her friend asks too.

[![This coffee isn't very coffee coffee](https://i.sstatic.net/hTLOum.jpg)](https://i.sstatic.net/hTLOu.jpg)
[![What does not coffee coffee even mean?](https://i.sstatic.net/4Q0y8m.png)](https://i.sstatic.net/4Q0y8.png)
[![It's not coffee coffee!](https://i.sstatic.net/OK4DTm.png)](https://i.sstatic.net/OK4DTm.png)

Relevant video on [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIfigZMdwuQ)
**Tags:** nichijou
> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: which episode is this  
> **username_0**: @Darjeeling i forgot, but it is on youtube, you could find it in my post  
---
## 2 answers
### Answer by username_3 on 2017-11-21. Score: 12 | Accepted answer
There's no pun. She is using "coffee-coffee" as a made-up adjective to describe that the coffee she is drinking doesn't have properties of coffee, and as you can tell from her friend's response, it's not standard Japanese (she could've just said something like "This doesn't taste like coffee."). The subtitle uses the phrase as-is, but something more English could be something like "This isn't very coffee."

The gag of this skit is that Girl B drinks and agrees with the fictional word, despite no description of what it means. I feel this isn't supposed to be funny, but more closer to something the viewers can agree to, like when eating out with friends and trying to describe what you just ate/drank, but cannot find the right words for it (thus just saying something like "coffee-coffee").
> **Comments:**
> **username_5** (2017-11-21): Normally I add -y or -ee sound to a word to make this happen, but it wouldn't work well with Coffee. For instance, these donuts aren't very donut-y  
> **username_3** (2017-11-21): @MichaelMcQuade Yeah, I thought about doing that, but as you said, it doesn't work well with coffee :P  
> **username_0** (2017-11-22): for some reason i found this scene funny, but i didnt understand what's going on this scen...  
---
### Answer by username_2 on 2017-11-21. Score: 7
Jimmy's answer is good, but I want to offer one clarification.

To an English speaker, "coffee-coffee" sounds an awful lot like [contrastive focus reduplication](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contrastive_focus_reduplication). "this is coffee, but it's not COFFEE-coffee" might mean "this beverage has some but not all of the essential properties of coffee". However: Japanese doesn't *have* contrastive focus reduplication! That's not what's actually being said here.

Reduplication in Japanese is used primarily for mimetics (onomatopoeia, basically). Unlike with English's contrastive focus reduplication, you can't really apply "mimetic reduplication" to arbitrary Japanese nouns, so "*kōhī-kōhī*" (which is sort of a weird adjective-ified form of "coffee") sounds stranger to the Japanese ear than "COFFEE-coffee" sounds to the English ear. If I were to attempt an analogy, this might be somewhat like forming a strange derived adjective from coffee, as in "this coffee isn't very coffile".
> **Comments:**
> **username_3** (2017-11-21): Great clarification. Didn't think of that COFFEE-coffee part.  
> **username_1** (2017-11-22): "this coffee isn't very coffile" did you mean "this coffee isn't very coffee"  
> **username_2** (2017-11-22): @Darjeeling No, I did mean "coffile", as a weird of use of [-ile](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-ile) as a marginally-productive adjectivizing suffix, a la "fissile", "prehensile", "labile", etc.  
> **username_4** (2021-01-15): This is what I though when I saw the episode. It's not like something well defined, as the other girl herself asked: "what does it mean to coffee-coffee?"

It's just that it seemed that the first girl had made some nonsensical word to describe the coffee, as the word itself is not even explainable, but when the other girl tasted she simply agreed that it was not coffee-coffee.

I laughed.  
---
