¿Podría usted ponerme el helado de vainilla en una tarrina y no en cucurucho, por favor?

Podría is the conditional form of poder, and in requests it works like English could you... ? It sounds more polite and less direct than puede.

• ¿Puede usted ponerme...? = Can you serve me...?
• ¿Podría usted ponerme...? = Could you serve me...?

Both are correct, but podría is softer and more courteous.

No. Spanish usually drops subject pronouns because the verb ending already shows who the subject is.

So these are both correct:

• ¿Podría usted ponerme...?
• ¿Podría ponerme...?

Adding usted makes the sentence sound more formal or more explicitly respectful. In Spain, many people would leave it out in everyday situations.

Yes, poner literally means to put, but in Spain it is also very commonly used in cafés, bars, and food shops to mean serve, give, or dish out.

So here ponerme el helado means something like:

• serve me the ice cream
• give me the ice cream
• put the ice cream for me

It is very natural in this kind of context.

The me means to me / for me.

So:

• poner = to put / to serve
• ponerme = to serve me / to put for me

In Spanish, object pronouns can be attached to an infinitive:

• ¿Podría ponerme el helado...?

Or they can go before the conjugated verb:

• ¿Me podría poner el helado...?

Both are correct and natural.

Both can be possible, but they focus on slightly different things.

• el helado de vainilla often means the vanilla ice cream as a flavour/product you are choosing from
• un helado de vainilla emphasizes one ice cream of that flavour

In an ice-cream shop, Spanish often refers to the flavour almost as a specific item on display. That is why el helado de vainilla sounds natural here.

In real life, people in Spain very often shorten this even more:

• ¿Me pone el de vainilla...? = Could you give me the vanilla one...?

In Spain, tarrina is the little tub, cup, or small container they put ice cream in instead of a cone.

So if you want ice cream in a cup rather than a cone, tarrina is a very normal word to use in Spain.

This is a very natural kind of omission in Spanish ordering language.

You can say:

• en una tarrina
• en tarrina
• en un cucurucho
• en cucurucho

All of these can be correct depending on style and emphasis.

In quick food orders, Spanish often drops the article after en when talking about the format of serving something:

• en taza
• en vaso
• en plato
• en tarrina
• en cucurucho

So no en cucurucho sounds perfectly natural. If you wanted, you could also say no en un cucurucho.

Yes, cucurucho is a very common word in Spain for an ice-cream cone.

You may also hear cono, and people will understand it, but cucurucho is especially common in Spain in this context.

It is natural and correct, but it sounds quite polite and somewhat formal for an everyday ice-cream order.

In Spain, people often use shorter versions such as:

• ¿Me pone el de vainilla en tarrina, por favor?
• El de vainilla, en tarrina, por favor.
• En tarrina, por favor, no en cucurucho.

So your sentence is good, but many native speakers would say something shorter in real life.

Por favor is quite flexible. It can go at the end, in the middle, or sometimes near the beginning.

For example:

• ¿Podría ponerme el helado de vainilla en una tarrina y no en cucurucho, por favor?
• ¿Podría, por favor, ponerme el helado de vainilla en una tarrina y no en cucurucho?
• Por favor, ¿podría ponerme el helado de vainilla en una tarrina y no en cucurucho?

The version with por favor at the end is probably the most natural and common in everyday speech.