Questions & Answers about Was möchten Sie trinken?
Why do we use möchten here instead of wollen?
möchten translates to would like, making it a polite way to ask what someone wants. If you used wollen (to want), it would sound much more direct and slightly rude. In a restaurant or cafe, möchten is the standard, polite choice.
Why is trinken at the very end of the sentence?
When you use a modal verb like möchten, it takes the normal verb position right after the question word Was. The main action verb, trinken, gets pushed to the very end of the sentence in its basic, unchanged dictionary form.
Why is Sie capitalized here?
The capitalized Sie is the formal word for you. It is used when speaking to strangers, adults you do not know well, or in customer service situations. If it were lowercase sie, it would mean she or they, which changes the meaning completely!
If I were asking a friend, how would this sentence change?
For a friend, you would use the informal you, which is du. The modal verb changes its ending to match, so the sentence becomes: Was möchtest du trinken?