בא לך לשתות קפה בבית הקפה ליד המשרד?

coffee

Breakdown of בא לך לשתות קפה בבית הקפה ליד המשרד?

• לשתות: to drink
• ב: at
• משרד: office

Questions & Answers about בא לך לשתות קפה בבית הקפה ליד המשרד?

What does בא לך mean here? It literally looks like comes to you.

Yes — literally, בא לך is something like comes to you, from the verb לבוא (to come).

But as an idiomatic expression, בא לך... means:

• Do you feel like... ?
• Do you want to... ?
• Are you in the mood to... ?

So:

• בא לך לשתות קפה? = Do you feel like drinking coffee?

It is a very common, everyday, informal Hebrew expression.

---

Why is it בא לך and not a form that matches the person being spoken to?

Because in this expression, בא is usually treated as a fixed impersonal form in everyday Hebrew.

Even though בא is grammatically the masculine singular form of to come, in בא לך / בא לי / בא לו it works more like an idiom:

• בא לי = I feel like / I want
• בא לך = you feel like / you want
• בא לו = he feels like / he wants

So learners should usually memorize בא + pronoun as a set phrase rather than trying to analyze it too literally.

---

Is בא לך formal or informal?