Desire

This has been bugging me for a while now.

I've been told a million times that, when you're talking about a second or third person desire, never to use たい/たいです in formal situations. However, I have never heard what it should be, only what it shouldn't. So, I have a few questions.

1. If I wanted to formally ask someone what they wanted, what can I say?
2. If I wanted to tell someone what somebody else wanted, what can I say?
3. Is it okay to use ほしいです in formal situations when talking about second or third person desire?

Thanks.

In asking questions, you can say ～たいですか？ Here you are not supposing anything about the person, so this form is okay.

In talking about other parties desires, you should add something like たいそうです, たいだろう, etc that makes it clear that you are not claiming it to be a certainty, or that its something you heard/observed.

The special form specifically for doing it is to drop the い in い adjectives that indicate desire/personal feeling (ほしい、こわい、～たい） and add がる。 Also, change the が that normally would indicate what a person desires to an を。 For example:

彼は新しい車をほしがっている。

Charles Barkley said:

The special form specifically for doing it is to drop the い in い adjectives that indicate desire/personal feeling (…こわい…

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In standard Japanese, こわい is used only to mean "afraid; fearful."

Is that Tohoku dialect?

Charles Barkley said:

In asking questions, you can say ～たいですか？ Here you are not supposing anything about the person, so this form is okay.
In talking about other parties desires, you should add something like たいそうです, たいだろう, etc that makes it clear that you are not claiming it to be a certainty, or that its something you heard/observed.

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たいだそう I've never heard so cannot comment on specifically but と思っているそう may be better if you mean having heard about X's desire from a third source

～たいそう comes across to me like it is an aspect of the situation or their demenour that is read as an indication of wanting or wishing for goal/object etc.

To take the car example, 車を買いたがっている or ~ほしがっている、車を買いとおもっている are stronger and probably indicate an outright declaration of intent from the person.

In short, it isn't always necessary to add anything but one common use of a 'safe' ending would be たいと思っています。

What other people want | Japan Forum

Thanks for the replies and link, everyone.

Charles Barkley said:

In asking questions, you can say ～たいですか？ Here you are not supposing anything about the person, so this form is okay.

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Really? My book said that only worked in informal questions, and said that was a common mistake of people learning Japanese. Weird. Well, nobody refuted what you said, so I guess my book is wrong.

epigene said:

IIn standard Japanese, こわい is used only to mean "afraid; fearful."
Is that Tohoku dialect?

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Ahh, I perhaps should have elaborated more. I meant kowai as an example of a personal word--a word that one would use to describe one's own feelings but not the feelings of others, in which case it would be changed to kowagaru. I didn't mean that the word itself has anything to do with desire, although people do have weird desires I suppose...


That is the one I usually (exclusively?) hear: ~たいと思っています。 I was probably just making a poor supposition there about ~たいそうだ. I rely on the throw stuff out there and hope its corrected when wrong strategy of helping people on here.


I'm pretty sure you can say ～たいですか in most situations. Then again, what books say is informal and what actually is informal tend to be a lot different, so perhaps that's where the difference lies (reality is a lot less formal, at least many places).

～たいですか？

EvilCowSlayer said:

Really? My book said that only worked in informal questions, and said that was a common mistake of people learning Japanese. Weird. Well, nobody refuted what you said, so I guess my book is wrong.

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It really depends on the situation, but basically ～たい（ですか）？ is used in rather casual situations.

Generally, in polite/formal situation, one would use keigo rather than using ～たい.
For example, if you go to a fastfood shop or restaurant, they would never say;
何を飲みたいですか
何を注文したいですか
持ち帰りたいですか

instead they'd ask you;
何をお飲みになりますか
ご注文は何になさいますか
お持ち帰りになりますか

But again, it really depends on the situation/context.

Sometimes たい is used combined with keigo, though keigo only is far more common.
e.g.
今日は何をなさりたいですか

EvilCowSlayer said:

My book said that only worked in informal questions, and said that was a common mistake of people learning Japanese. Weird. Well, nobody refuted what you said, so I guess my book is wrong.

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EvilCowSlayer, may I ask you to explain what formal and informal situations are to you?

Is 'ordering at McDonald's' a formal or informal situation? To me, that's hard to say because I would expect the clerk to talk to me in a formal way but I usually don't speak very formally to the clerk.

As a native speaker of Japanese who has worked with a dozen North Americans with their Japanese studies online, I've often been puzzled by their use of the terms 'formal and informal' and 'polite and not polite'.

Suppose there's an American who would say "Gimme a cheeseburger and a small coke for here." at burger joints in his own country and he happens to be studying Japanese. Should he wonder if he would be expected to say, once in Japan, something like "I desire to purchase a cheeseburger and a small-size Coca Cola to consume here in this establishment, please." in Japanese? He would certainly make the clerk's day, wouldn't he?

I seriously fail to understand this fascination about politeness in speech among some Japanese learners. I believe that if you are originally a polite person, then you would naturally speak politely in Japanese. If you are not, you will speak accordingly, in Japanese or your native language.

masaegu said:

Suppose there's an American who would say "Gimme a cheeseburger and a small coke for here." at burger joints in his own country and he happens to be studying Japanese. Should he wonder if he would be expected to say, once in Japan, something like "I desire to purchase a cheeseburger and a small-size Coca Cola to consume here in this establishment, please." in Japanese? He would certainly make the clerk's day, wouldn't he?

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He certainly wouldn't in America. The only politeness that is acceptable here are adding words like "please" and "I'd like." Any attempt at charm beyond that is an annoying distraction, takes time to process and most importantly could lead the
clerk to lose track of the order.

It's the same in Japan. All this rude guy needs to pick up is a phrase book that tells him to tack on "kudasai" or "onegai shimasu" at the end of the full order. Making a point of "please" or "I would like" after each selection is as confusing or inappropriate, stupid really, as not doing it at all in my opinion.

丁寧にしようとしすぎてぎこちなくなったり、不自然に なることもあるので気をつけましょうね。

masaegu said:

I seriously fail to understand this fascination about politeness in speech among some Japanese learners. I believe that if you are originally a polite person, then you would naturally speak politely in Japanese. If you are not, you will speak accordingly, in Japanese or your native language.

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I wouldn't exactly call it fascination. A better word might be paranoia.

For myself, I often worry excessively about rubbing people the wrong way with what I say. It takes me forever to write formally in English, because I take so much time making sure there's nothing at all that could possibly offend someone.

As for others, I think it's part of how we are taught. A lot of emphasis, perhaps too much, is placed on being formal. You will not find a book or CD set that even mentions plain forms in the beginning. My previous grammar book has 40 lessons, and it doesn't mention plain forms until Lesson 12. The dialogues are in plain form for only two lessons, 34 and 35. Everything else is formal, formal, formal. That, and some other factors, put this fear into you that if you incorrectly speak in plain for even one sentence, the Gods of Formality will unleash their wrath on you and beat you up in a dark alley somewhere.

masaegu said:

EvilCowSlayer, may I ask you to explain what formal and informal situations are to you?

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In English, I pretty much speak informally all the time. It's difficult to think of situations where I don't. If I'm a guest at something, or if I'm talking to someone of significantly higher status, I tend to speak a bit more formally.

In Japanese, I try to imitate how others are speaking, but sometimes I see a bit of both, and I get confused. Currently, and I believe a lot of other people are using this too, the method I use is a "safe" one: informal with family and friends, formal everywhere else. This mostly stems from the fact that we're not sure; it's never really been clear cut to us. I don't like to use it, but it's a necessity, as we're never really told when to use each.

EvilCowSlayer, I agree about the paranoia, i run into it and a number of inaccuracies so i've learned not to rely on one source too much for my studies.

I think i annoy people allot even speaking English because i speak a little more formally than they would like. There are no Japanese speakers where i live, so i have yet to actually use what i've learned and so i'm not sure how i would speak.