Last time we looked at some ways to use the magic word (or words) to get what we want. But you can’t always have what you want. Sometimes we don’t need to request anything, we just want to tell someone what it is we want and don’t expect them to do anything about it. When you tell your friend “I want a new car”, you don’t usually expect them to buy it for you (unless you are having an affair with a rich, generous person). In English we use “want” with both nouns and verbs but in Japanese there are two different ways to say want. It is important to take note of this when you study Japanese.
I want to eat 食べたい
When you want to do something, you have to conjugate the verb with the -tai ending so the sentence becomes “Noun + wo + verb-tai”. This is a verb conjugation so obviously we can not use it with nouns. After a long day, ”食べたい！” is how you’d say “I want to eat!”. We take the stem form of “Taberu” or “to eat” with the -tai ending「何を食べたい？」would be a casual way to ask “What do you want to eat. To make this more polite, we add a “desu” at the end 「何を食べたいですか？」 「すしを食べたいです」 “I want to eat sushi”. Easy enough, right?
I want a car 車が欲しい
When you express that you want an object or a noun, the grammar is different so please be careful. We use the pattern “Noun + ga hoshii”, so if you are working day and night to save up for a new guitar you can say 「新しいギターが欲しい」 or “I want a new guitar”. Or if you’ve been single for a long time and finally need some love and affection you can say 「新しい彼女が欲しい!」 or “I want a new girlfriend!”. You’ve friend might respond with “Ganbatte!” or “Do your best!” People tend to use Verb with the -tai when they can. 「すしが欲しい」 and 「すしを食べた」 essentially mean the same thing but it is more common to say “I want to eat sushi” than “I want sushi”, just like in English. When we want to be polite, we add a “desu” at the end.
I Miss New York
One of the most frustrating things for people who study Japanese is trying to express that you miss something. There is no verb to express “to miss” in Japanese. We have to work with what we’ve got. There are two main ways we can do this. Instead of saying “I miss New York”, we might say 「ニューヨークに戻りたい」 or “I want to return to New York”. This can be frustrating if we don’t actually want to express discontent with Tokyo. We could also say「ニューヨークは懐かしいです」 or “New York is nostalgic”. The third way to say this is 「ニューヨークは恋しいです」 or something like “New York is dear to me” but you will not hear this one often. Take your pick. “I miss you” would most often be translated as 「あなたに会いたい」.
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