yes, that would be my preferred translation. There is not much sense to ask someone if he is drinking right now, since he could not answer the questing with a yes.

Ich trinke

Du trinkst

er, sie, es trinkt

Wir trinken

Ihr trinkt

sie trinken

Sie trinken

This goes for all verbs, so "I have" = "Ich habe", and so on.

Hope this helps!

Essentially always, yes.

"to be" (sein) is very irregular, as in English, but other than that, the main exceptions I can think of are:

• -st for du assimilates to a verb stem ending in -s, -z, -x, -ß to just -t, e.g. passen: du passt; setzen: du setzt
• The vowel of the stem may change (a: ä, au: äu, e: i/ie) in the du and er, sie, es forms; this is unpredictable and simply has to be learned (e.g. passen: du passt but lassen: du lässt; gehen: du gehst but sehen: du siehst)
• If the verb stem ends in -er or -el, the e before or after the liquid consonant may disappear (e.g. handeln: wir handeln rather than wir handelen with -en; ich handle and ich handele are both possible)

But in general, you just have to learn the endings -e, -st, -t; -en, -t, -en and you're set for all verbs in German as long as you look out for a possible vowel change.

No; "Drinkest thou?"

That would be like "You drink?" or "You're drinking?"

It's not a neutral question asking for information; it's a surprise question when you can't believe what you just heard or what you are seeing and you're asking for confirmation.

• Are you drinking? -- question.
• You are drinking. -- statement.

This course expects yes–no questions in standard written English starting with a verb, e.g. "Are you drinking? Do you like coffee?"

Questions that use statement word order but question intonation such as "You are drinking?? You like coffee??" are considered surprise/confirmation questions — where you just heard or saw something that surprises you and you are asking for confirmation that you understood correctly, rather than being neutral questions.

German also has such surprise/confirmation questions, which also use statement word order — so "You are drinking??" would be a translation of Du trinkst??, and "You like coffee??" of Du magst Kaffee??, rather than of neutral questions such as Trinkst du? Magst du Kaffee?.

We don't use surprise/confirmation questions on this course. (Perhaps one or two exceptions; I'm not completely sure.)

Therefore, please translate questions into English using neutral question word order, with the verb first (this verb is often a form of the helping verb "do").

No -- "Du trinkst?" is not a neutral question.

Using statement word order (verb second) but question intonation is used when you have heard or seen something surprising and want make sure that you heard or saw correctly. "Seriously? You drink??"

Normal yes-no questions have the verb at the beginning, e.g. Trinkst du?

I think it have a possible meaning of "do you drink" . Am I right? Like a person wants to ask do you drink alcohol

Yes, that is a possible translation as well.

what will be the exact german translation of "are you drinking"?

Languages are different, so there will rarely be an "exact" translation that is used in exactly the same situations as another, and in no others.

Trinkst du? can mean "Do you drink?" (in general) or "Are you drinking?" (right now).

I meant trinkst means drink, not drinking, right?

No.

du trinkst can translate to "you are drinking" or to "you drink". Standard German does not make a grammatical distinction here.