Wollen vs möchten

In Level 1 Lesson 5.6, "I don't want to come along" is translated as "Ich möchte nicht mitkommen."  Wouldn't that more correctly be "Ich will nicht mitkommen"?

Wouldn't "Ich möchte nicht mitkommen" be more like "I wouldn't like to come along," or less stiffly "I don't feel like coming along"?

Hallo RobertD50,

You are right in saying that the most common translation of ich möchte is definitely “I would like“. However, sometimes you might find it translated as “I want“ because it makes the English sentence sound more natural in that context, for example "I don't want to come along" sounds a lot more natural than "I wouldn't like to come along."

Ich möchte is not often translated this way in the course and we always do our best to make sure the translations are the closest to the original German as they can be without sounding unnatural in English. In order to avoid any confusion in the future we will add in a literal translation for this sentence.

Viele Grüße
Julia

Understood--thanks for the explanation.