Grammar 13 — Desires: たい & ほしい

たい and ほしい express inner emotional states — feelings you can only know for certain about yourself. Japanese treats direct statements about others' desires as presumptuous.  • Use たい / ほしい only for the first person (わたし).  • For questions (you), たい in questions is grammatically fine but can feel pushy.  • For third parties, switch to the -がる suffix form.

To talk about what someone else wants, replace たい → たがる and ほしい → ほしがる. These attach to the same ます-stem as たい, and conjugate as regular る-verbs.  • たべたい → たべたがる (seems to want to eat)  • ほしい → ほしがる (seems to want [thing])  • Add -ている for ongoing observable state: たべたがっている.

To request that someone else does something for you, use て-form + ほしい. This is distinct from たい (your own desire to act) and ほしい (wanting a thing).  • It expresses YOUR wish that ANOTHER PERSON performs an action.  • Can sound demanding — soften with のですが or ～てもらえませんか.

Adding のですが (or んですが) after たい softens the statement into an indirect request or polite lead-in, leaving space for the listener to respond.  • Literally: "It's that I want to… but / and…"  • The trailing が creates an expectation of a follow-up or implies a request without stating it bluntly.  • Very commonly used when asking for permission or assistance.