Question regarding difference of grammar.

[Scrivener]

Thanks for the link Liz!

In Lesson 21 you learned the Vたい form, which express the speaker's own desire, "I want to..." At the same time, you were cautioned not use the Vたい form to express other's desires. The others' desires are expressed with the prhase Vたがっている. This form literally means "show the sign of wanting." The implication here is that one cannot know what others want directly, but only indirectly by inferring, through hearsay, or by observing... As you may guess, the difference between Vたい and Vたがっている is closely related to the difference between と思う and と思っている. As seen in both cases, the Japanese language is more sensitive to the distinction between speaker's own private world vs. others' worlds than English is.

Yeah, that's what I was remembering from however many years ago...

Remember we were talking here about saying "the student who wants to see a movie". That's the kind of situation I was interested in, and I thought it fell under the case mentioned in the quote of "talking about others desires". However I know there are many exceptions like general cases, etc. I'm not sure how strong this rule is anyway.

 

[Elizabeth]

Remember we were talking here about saying "the student who wants to see a movie". That's the kind of situation I was interested in, and I thought it fell under the case mentioned in the quote of "talking about others desires". However I know there are many exceptions like general cases, etc. I'm not sure how strong this rule is anyway.

I'll pose it as a Nihongo forum post tomorrow or ask a friend tonight if I can get my act together. :haihai: