You are reading the notes for elements in the dialogue, aren't you? If you read all the notes, you might feel a bit overwhelmed. Don't be. This lesson introduced a lot of new things, and you don't need to understand everything right now. Lessons to come will explain these things in more details and over time you will get accustomed to the way German language works.
möchten (would like) is not really a separate verb but a Konjunktiv II version of the verb mögen (to like), but it so often used that it is often mentioned at the beginning of every German language course (Konjunktiv comes much later in the curriculum). So, if you want to express a desire or a wish, you will say Ich möchte ... .
What do you want is probably not something a polite waiter will say in English, but in German, this might happen. I doesn't feel so rude in German because the "formal form" Sie is used. When you talk to another person, you can use du or Sie. "Du" is reserved for family and friends, and "Sie" is used on the street, in restaurants, or at your workplace.
Bitte means please. This is a very common verb in German. Germans pay attention to civil communication, and bitte (please) and danke (thank you) are very important.
In this sentence we see ein Bier and eine Brezel. What is this ein/eine?
These are indefinite articles that are used in German, like 'a/an' in English, but it is not as easy as a/an. Articles, indefinite and definite, in the German language are declensed and the form of the article depends on the gender of the noun it is used with. In this case, the word Bier is a neuter noun, while the word Brezel is feminine.
And here we come to probably the biggest obstacle in learning the German language - gender of a noun. Gender of a noun can be a problem, because many things depend on the gender of the noun. You will need to learn the gender of a noun along with the noun. Then, when you know the gender of a noun, you can declense the articles into their proper form.
We already saw how you can turn a verb into negative with the word nicht. You can also turn the noun into a negative form with the word kein. This word is used similarly as the indefinite article.
Das in this case means that. But das is also a definite article in German language.
We can ask the question with a question word like was (what) or wo (where), but we can also ask a question that starts with the verb. As you can see, the verb in this question comes to the first place.
Rotwein is a word that combines two words, the adjective rot (red) and the noun Wein (wine). Germans love to combine words together. This makes German confusing for foreigners because words with 30 or more characters are not uncommon. With time, you will learn to split such words into their elements, and you will be able to understand the meaning.
In this case, adjective and noun are combined, but often two or more nouns will be combined into a single word. In that case, the gender of the compound noun is the gender of the last noun in the series.
Key phrases
Ich möchte bestellen.
Ich möchte ein Bier.
Wie viel kostet das zusammen?
Das macht 10 Euro.
Zahlen Sie zusammen oder getrennt?
Questions
1. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ?, was möchten Sie? 2. Ich _ _ _ _ ? ein Bier. 3. Wir _ _ _ _ _ _ ? zusammen. 4. Ich möchte _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ?. 5. Ich möchte ein _ _ _ _ ? Rotwein.