카페에서 커피 주문할 때 쓰는 쉬운 표현

What does “한 잔 (han jan)” mean in Korean?

To order a drink in Korean you can’t just say “one” — you need a counter. For cups and glasses of anything liquid, that word is 잔 (jan). So “one Americano, please” comes out as 아메리카노 한 잔 주세요, literally “Americano one cup please.” The number 하나 (“one”) shrinks to 한 right before the counter, and 잔 does the rest — coffee, tea, water, beer, all take 잔.

Korean counts almost everything with a measure word, and 잔 is the one travellers reach for first: 커피 두 잔 (“two coffees”), 맥주 세 잔 (“three beers”), 물 한 잔 주세요 (“one glass of water, please”). Note the shrinking native numbers — 하나→한, 둘→두, 셋→세 — right before the counter. 잔 also stands alone as the noun “cup/glass” (from Sino-Korean 盞), and the same drinking word powers 한잔하다, “to grab a drink.” So mastering this single café move — Americano 한 잔, latte 한 잔 — quietly unlocks the whole Korean counting system.