Questions & Answers about Я хотел бы заказать суп.
Why do we use the past tense хотел when I am asking for soup right now?
To say 'would like' politely in Russian, you use the past tense of хотеть (to want) plus the particle бы. Even though you want the soup right now, this combination creates the conditional mood, which softens your request and makes it much more polite than saying я хочу (I want).
Does this sentence change if a woman is speaking?
Yes! Because the conditional mood uses a past tense verb, it has to match the gender of the speaker. A male speaker says Я хотел бы, while a female speaker must say Я хотела бы.
Why is the perfective verb заказать used here instead of the imperfective заказывать?
You use the perfective заказать because you are talking about one specific, completed action: ordering a bowl of soup right now. The imperfective заказывать would be used for a repeated habit, such as 'I usually order soup'.
I know that the object of a sentence should be in the Accusative case. Why is суп not changed?
Суп actually is in the Accusative case here! It does not change its ending because it is a masculine, inanimate noun (meaning it is not a living person or animal). For masculine inanimate nouns, the Accusative case looks exactly the same as the dictionary form.
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