הוא שואל: "את רוצה קפה?" ואני עונה: "לא, תודה."

Because את is you when speaking to one female.

• אתה = you (to a male)
• את = you (to a female)

So if the speaker is asking a woman, Do you want coffee?, Hebrew uses את רוצה קפה?

If he were speaking to a man, it would be:

• אתה רוצה קפה?

In the Hebrew present tense, verbs usually change for gender and number, but not as clearly for person as in English.

Here:

• רוצה = singular masculine/feminine pattern depending on context? More precisely, the written form without ניקוד can serve different present-tense uses, but in this sentence it matches the feminine singular addressee because of את.
• רוצה after את is understood as you (feminine) want
• רוצה after היא would be she wants

So the pronoun helps tell you exactly who is meant.

Yes, in casual speech Hebrew can often drop subject pronouns, and רוצה קפה? is very natural in conversation.

But את is included here to make the subject clear:

• את רוצה קפה? = clearly addressed to a female
• רוצה קפה? = Want coffee? / Do you want coffee?

Because present-tense verb forms in Hebrew do not always show person clearly, pronouns are often useful.

Hebrew does not use an auxiliary verb like English do for simple present questions.

English:

• Do you want coffee?

Hebrew:

• את רוצה קפה?

Hebrew simply uses:

1. the subject
2. the verb
3. the object

A yes/no question is usually shown by intonation in speech, and by a question mark in writing.

It literally means he asks or he is asking.

• הוא = he
• שואל = asks / is asking

In modern Hebrew present tense, this form can often correspond to both English simple present and present progressive, depending on context.

So הוא שואל could mean:

• he asks
• he is asking

In this sentence, natural English is usually He asks.

It means I answer or I am answering.

• אני = I
• עונה = answer / am answering

Again, Hebrew present tense often covers both:

• simple present
• present continuous

So the exact English translation depends on context.

Because in the Hebrew present tense, the verb form often mainly reflects gender and number, not person.

So עונה can appear with different subjects, depending on who is speaking:

• אני עונה = I answer / I am answering
  (if the speaker is female, this is straightforward; in unpointed modern Hebrew, forms can overlap in writing)
• היא עונה = she answers
• את עונה = you answer (to a female)

This is one reason Hebrew often uses pronouns like אני, היא, את.

The ו means and.

In Hebrew, some short words are written as prefixes attached directly to the next word. So:

• ו + אני = ואני
• literally: and I

This attached ו is extremely common.

Other examples:

• וכתב = and he wrote
• ובית = and a house / and house

The colon introduces direct speech, just like in English.

So:

• הוא שואל: ...
• ואני עונה: ...

means:

• He asks: ...
• And I answer: ...

Hebrew punctuation in modern writing is often very similar to English punctuation in cases like this.

לא means no or not, depending on context.

Here it means no:

• לא, תודה = No, thank you

In other sentences, לא can also negate a verb:

• אני לא רוצה קפה = I do not want coffee

So לא is both a very common standalone no and the regular word for negation.

Yes, very normal.

• לא, תודה = No, thank you

It is short, polite, and natural.

You could also hear:

• לא, תודה רבה = No, thank you very much
• לא, אני לא רוצה = No, I don’t want [any]
• לא, תודה, אני בסדר = No, thank you, I’m fine

But לא, תודה is a basic and very useful phrase.

Because Hebrew does not have an indefinite article like English a/an.

So:

• קפה can mean coffee or a coffee, depending on context.

Compare:

• את רוצה קפה? = Do you want coffee? / Do you want a coffee?
• את רוצה את הקפה? = Do you want the coffee?

Hebrew does have a definite article:

• ה־ = the

So:

• קפה = coffee / a coffee
• הקפה = the coffee

This is the most basic and natural word order:

• את = subject
• רוצה = verb
• קפה = object

So:

• את רוצה קפה?

Hebrew word order is somewhat flexible, but this is the standard pattern here. In everyday speech, you may also hear the subject dropped:

• רוצה קפה?

That sounds very natural in conversation.

You would change the second-person pronoun:

• את רוצה קפה? = to a woman
• אתה רוצה קפה? = to a man

So the full sentence would become:

• הוא שואל: אתָה רוצה קפה? ואני עונה: לא, תודה.

More naturally without extra emphasis:

• הוא שואל: את/ה רוצה קפה? ואני עונה: לא, תודה.

If you want the completely masculine version of the reply speaker too, you might also change עונה depending on the speaker.

Yes, it can.

In standard Hebrew, present-tense verbs agree with gender and number. So עונה is associated with a masculine singular pattern in one verb class, but because Hebrew is often written without vowels, some forms look identical on the page across different categories. In a beginner sentence like this, the important point is that the pronoun אני tells you the subject is I, and context tells you how to translate it.

For learners, the safest takeaway is:

• do not rely only on the written present-tense form to identify person
• use the pronoun and context

That is why אני עונה is easy to understand as I answer even though the verb form alone may not tell you everything.