We will now learn how to say what you want either by just coming out and saying it or by making discreet suggestions. The major topics we will cover will be the \u300c\u305f\u3044\u300d conjugation and the volitional form. We will also learn specialized uses of the \u300c\u305f\u3089\u300d and \u300c\u3070\u300d conditionals to offer advice.<\/p>\n
You can express verbs that you want<\/i> to perform with the \u300c\u305f\u3044\u300d form. All you need to do is add \u300c\u305f\u3044\u300d to the stem of the verb. However, unlike most conjugations we learned where the verb turns into a ru-verb, this form actually transforms the verb into an i-adjective (notice how \u300c\u305f\u3044\u300d conveniently ends in \u300c\u3044\u300d). This makes sense because the conjugated form is a description of something that you want to do. Once you have the \u300c\u305f\u3044\u300d form, you can then conjugate it the same as you would any other i-adjective. However, the \u300c\u305f\u3044\u300d form is different from regular i-adjectives because it is derived from a verb. Particles we normally associate with verbs such as \u300c\u3092\u300d\u3001\u300c\u306b\u300d\u3001\u300c\u3078\u300d\u3001or \u300c\u3067\u300d can all be used with the \u300c\u305f\u3044\u300d form in addition to the particles commonly used with regular adjectives such as \u300c\u306f\u300d and \u300c\u304c\u300d.<\/p>\n
\n| <\/th>\n | Positive<\/th>\n | Negative<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Non-Past<\/th>\n | \u884c\u304d\u305f\u3044<\/span><\/td>\n | \u884c\u304d\u305f\u304f\u306a\u3044<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n| Past<\/th>\n | \u884c\u304d\u305f\u304b\u3063\u305f<\/span><\/td>\n | \u884c\u304d\u305f\u304f\u306a\u304b\u3063\u305f<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n | <\/center><\/p>\n Examples<\/h3>\n\nWhat do you want to do?\n<\/li>\n \nI want to go to hot spring.\n<\/li>\n \nYou don’t want to eat cake?\n<\/li>\n \nI didn’t want to eat it but I became wanting to eat.\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n Example 4 was very awkward to translate but is quite simple in Japanese if you refer to the section about using \u300c\u306a\u308b<\/span>\u300d with i-adjectives”. The past tense of the verb \u300c\u306a\u308b<\/span>\u300d was used to create “became want to eat”. Here’s a tongue twister using the negative \u300c\uff5e\u305f\u304f\u306a\u3044\u300d and past-tense of \u300c\u306a\u308b<\/span>\u300d\uff1a \u300c\u98df\u3079\u305f\u304f\u306a\u304f\u306a\u3063\u305f<\/span>\u300d meaning “became not wanting to eat”.\n<\/p>\n This may seem obvious but \u300c\u3042\u308b<\/span>\u300d cannot have a \u300c\u305f\u3044\u300d form because inanimate objects cannot want anything. However, \u300c\u3044\u308b<\/span>\u300d can be used with the \u300c\u305f\u3044\u300d form in examples like the one below.\n<\/p>\n Also, you can only use the \u300c\u305f\u3044\u300d form for the first-person because you cannot read other people’s mind to see what they want to do. For referring to anyone beside yourself, it is normal to use expressions such as, “I think he wants to…” or “She said that she wants to…” We will learn how to say such expressions in a later lesson. Of course, if you’re asking a question, you can just use the \u300c\u305f\u3044\u300d form because you’re not presuming to know anything.<\/p>\n In English, we employ a verb to say that we want something. In Japanese, “to want” is actually an i-adjective and not a verb. We saw something similar with \u300c\u597d\u304d<\/span>\u300d which is an adjective while “to like” in English is a verb. While I didn’t get too much into the workings of \u300c\u597d\u304d<\/span>\u300d, I have dedicated a whole section to \u300c\u6b32\u3057\u3044<\/span>\u300d because it means, “to want something done” when combined with the te-form of a verb. We will learn a more polite and appropriate way to make requests in the “Making Requests” lesson instead of saying, “I want this done.”<\/p>\n \nThough not a set rule, whenever words come attached to the te-form of a verb to serve a special grammatical function, it is customary to write it in hiragana. This is because kanji is already used for the verb and the attached word becomes part of that verb.\n<\/p>\n Like I mentioned, there are more appropriate ways to ask for things which we won’t go into until later. This grammar is not used too often but is included for completeness.\n<\/p>\n The term volitional here means a will to do something. In other words, the volitional form indicates that someone is setting out to do something. In the most common example, this simply translates into the English “let’s” or “shall we?” but we’ll also see how this form can be used to express an effort to do something in a lesson further along.<\/p>\n To conjugate verbs into the volitional form for casual speech, there are two different rules for ru-verbs and u-verbs. For ru-verbs, you simply remove the \u300c\u308b\u300d and add \u300c\u3088\u3046\u300d. For u-verbs, you replace the \/ u \/ vowel sound with the \/ o \/ vowel sound and add \u300c\u3046\u300d.\n<\/p>\n I doubt you will ever use \u300c\u6b7b\u306e\u3046<\/span>\u300d (let’s die) but I left it in for completeness. Here are some more realistic examples.<\/p>\n |