Learn Hardcore German: Der Mann trinkt im Café Kaffee. - The man drinks coffee in the café.

In this sentence, the man is the one doing the action (he is drinking), so he is the subject. Subjects in German take the nominative case, so you must use der Mann, not den or dem Mann.

Why is Mann capitalized?

In German, all nouns are capitalized, not just proper names.

Mann is a noun (a person), so it is written as Mann, not mann.
The same is true for Café and Kaffee.

This is a spelling rule in German, not emphasis. Whenever you see a capitalized word in the middle of a sentence, it is very likely a noun.

Why is the verb form trinkt and not trinken?

Trinken is the infinitive form (to drink).
German verbs are conjugated according to the subject:

ich trinke
du trinkst
er / sie / es trinkt
wir trinken
ihr trinkt
sie / Sie trinken

Der Mann = he → third person singular → so the verb must be trinkt.
Using trinken here would be like saying “The man to drink in the café coffee” in English – grammatically wrong.

Why can trinkt mean both “drinks” and “is drinking” in English?

German has only one present tense form, which covers both:

English simple present: He drinks coffee every day.
English present continuous: He is drinking coffee (right now).

Der Mann trinkt im Café Kaffee. can mean either:

The man drinks coffee in the café (as a habit), or
The man is drinking coffee in the café (right now),

depending on context. German does not have a separate -ing form for the present like English does.

What exactly is im, and how is it different from in or in dem?

Im is a contraction of in dem:

in = in
dem = the (dative masculine or neuter)
in dem → im

So:

im Café literally = in dem Café = in the café.

You could say in dem Café, but in everyday German speakers almost always use the contracted form im, unless they want to stress dem for emphasis.

Compare:

in dem Café → im Café
in das Café (direction, into the café) → ins Café

Which case is used after im Café, and why?

Im = in dem, and dem shows the dative case.

The preposition in can take either:

dative (location: where something is)
accusative (direction: where something is going to)

Here it describes location (the man is in the café, not going into it), so it uses the dative:

das Café (nominative, dictionary form)
dem Café (dative) → contracted to im Café.

So im Café is a prepositional phrase in the dative case, showing where he is drinking.

Why is there no article before Kaffee? Why not einen Kaffee or den Kaffee?

In German, many food and drink words can be used without an article when talking about them as an uncountable substance or in a general sense:

Er trinkt Wasser. – He drinks water.
Sie isst Brot. – She eats bread.
Der Mann trinkt Kaffee. – The man drinks coffee.

No article here suggests coffee in general or coffee as a substance, not a specific cup.

If you use an article, the meaning changes slightly:

Der Mann trinkt einen Kaffee. – The man is drinking a coffee (one cup).
Der Mann trinkt den Kaffee. – The man is drinking the coffee (a specific one already known).

In this sentence, Kaffee is a direct object in the accusative case, but because it is used as a mass noun, it appears without an article.

Can we say Der Mann trinkt Kaffee im Café instead, and does that change the meaning?

Yes, you can also say:

Der Mann trinkt Kaffee im Café.

Both versions are grammatically correct:

Der Mann trinkt im Café Kaffee.
Der Mann trinkt Kaffee im Café.

The basic meaning is the same: the man drinks coffee in the café.

The difference is only a slight change in emphasis:

… im Café Kaffee: the place (im Café) is mentioned earlier, so the location may feel a bit more in focus.
… Kaffee im Café: you first hear what he drinks (Kaffee), then where.

German word order inside the middle field (between subject/verb and the sentence-final elements) is fairly flexible. Prepositional phrases like im Café and objects like Kaffee can often swap, with only subtle shifts in emphasis.

Why are both Café and Kaffee used? Aren’t they basically the same word?

They are related but mean different things in German:

Kaffee = coffee (the drink or the beans).
Café = café / coffeehouse, the place where you go to drink coffee.

So in the sentence:

im Café → in the café (location)
Kaffee → coffee (the drink)

Etymologically, both come from words for coffee in other languages (Turkish, Arabic, French), but in modern German they are clearly distinguished: Café is the shop, Kaffee is the beverage.

How do you pronounce Café and Kaffee in German?

Approximate pronunciation (standard German):

Café → [ka-ˈfeː]
- Stress on the second syllable: ca-FÉ
- Sounds roughly like English ka-FAY.
- The é shows the stress and a long e sound.
Kaffee → [ˈka-feː]
- Stress on the first syllable: KÁ-ffee
- Sounds roughly like KAH-fay in English.

So:

Café: ca-FÉ
Kaffee: KÁ-ffee

They look similar but have different stress patterns.

What gender is Café, and what article would it take?

Café is neuter in German.

Nominative singular: das Café – the café
Accusative singular: das Café
Dative singular: dem Café

In the sentence, you see im Café, which hides the article inside the contraction:

im = in dem
in dem Café → im Café

The form dem tells you that Café is neuter (or masculine dative), and here we know from usage that Café is neuter: das Café.

Why does the verb come in the second position in the sentence?

German main clauses follow the verb-second (V2) rule:

The finite verb (here: trinkt) must be in second position in the clause.
The first position can be the subject, an object, a time phrase, a place phrase, etc.

In the sentence:

Der Mann – first element
trinkt – verb in second position
im Café Kaffee – the rest of the information

If you started with something else, the verb would still stay second:

Im Café trinkt der Mann Kaffee.
Kaffee trinkt der Mann im Café.

In all of these, trinkt remains in position 2, which is a key word-order rule in German main clauses.