～たい

RuleVerb masu-stem + tai: (I/you) want to do.

Curiosity

How do you express your own wish to do something? (Different from hoshii, which wants a noun.)

Intuition

Take the masu-stem (the core of the action) and attach tai. It then conjugates like an i-adjective (takai → takakunai). In other words, "wanting" behaves like a feeling-adjective.

Visualization

nomu → nomi (masu-stem) → nomitai. Negative: nomitakunai.

飲むdictionary form

Essence

tai expresses first/second-person desire and conjugates as an i-adjective. For a third person, switch to tagaru (kare wa ikitagatte iru).

Examples

水が飲みたいです。

I want to drink water.

日本へ行きたい。

I want to go to Japan.

今日は何も食べたくない。

I don't want to eat anything today.

Mini-quiz

"eiga ga ___ desu." (I want to watch a movie)