Breakdown of Zou u de reservering eventueel kunnen annuleren?
u
you (formal)
kunnen
can
zullen
shall / will
de reservering
the reservation
eventueel
possibly / optionally
annuleren
to cancel
Questions & Answers about Zou u de reservering eventueel kunnen annuleren?
The English translation says "Could you", but the Dutch says Zou u ... kunnen. Why use both?
Zou means "would", and the infinitive kunnen means "to be able to". So, literally, you are asking "Would you be able to cancel...". Using zou ... kunnen is the standard, polite way to translate "Could you..." into Dutch.
Does eventueel mean "eventually"?
No, this is a classic false friend! Eventueel actually means "possibly" or "if necessary". To say "eventually" in Dutch, you would use a word like uiteindelijk. In this sentence, adding eventueel makes the request softer and more polite.
Why are there two verbs, kunnen and annuleren, stacked at the end of the sentence?
Because this is a yes/no question, the conjugated verb (zou) moves to the first position. In Dutch, any other verbs in the sentence are pushed all the way to the end. Since this sentence uses two infinitives ("to be able to" and "to cancel"), they stay together at the very end.
Since the pronoun is the formal u, shouldn't the verb be zoudt instead of zou?
Both zou u and zoudt u are grammatically correct. However, zou u is much more common in everyday Dutch. Just like jij drops the 't' in questions (zou jij), people usually drop it for u as well because zoudt u sounds very stiff and old-fashioned.
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