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Questions & Answers about Trinken Sie Tee?
Why does this sentence start with the verb Trinken?
In German, yes/no questions are formed by putting the verb in the very first position. While a normal statement would be Sie trinken Tee (You drink tea), swapping the verb and the subject makes it a question: Trinken Sie Tee?
Where is the German word for "do" in this question?
German does not use helper words like "do" or "does" to ask questions. Instead of asking "Do you drink tea?", German simply asks "Drink you tea?" by moving the main verb (Trinken) to the front of the sentence.
Does Sie mean "she", "they", or "you" here?
Here, Sie means the formal "you". You can tell it doesn't mean "she" because the verb has an -en ending (Trinken instead of Trinkt). While the German word for "they" also uses the -en ending, it is written with a lowercase s. Because Sie has a capital S in the middle of the sentence, it has to be the formal "you".
Why isn't there an article like den or einen before Tee?
Just like in English, when you are talking about a mass noun like a liquid in a general sense, you do not need an article. You can just say Tee instead of den Tee (the tea) or einen Tee (a tea).