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Lesson 9: I want to drink cola.
Click here for the kana version.

In this lesson, you will learn how to tell someone that you want to do something. Recall that present tense verbs have the -masu ending. In order to change these to the 'want to' ending, drop the -masu and replace it with -tai.

Examples:

masu form English tai form English
tabemasu to eat tabetai want to eat
nomimasu to drink nomitai want to drink
ikimasu
to go ikitai want to go
kaimasu
to buy kaitai want to buy
yomimasu to read yomitai want to read
kakimasu to write kakitai want to write
mimasu to watch/see mitai want to watch/see
kikimasu to listen/hear kikitai want to listen/hear
Examples:

Kouen ni ikimasu.
Kouen ni ikitai.

Gakkou ni ikimasu.
Gakkou ni ikitai.



I will go to the park.
I want to go to the park.

I go to school.
I want to go to school.

Now for one more twist. When you use tai with verbs that take o, you can also change the o to ga for emphasis if you want.


Examples:

Ringo o tabemasu.
Ringo o tabetai.
Ringo ga tabetai.



I eat apples.
I want to eat an apple.

I want to eat an apple.
In the above example, the second sentence just means that you want to eat apples. The third sentence means that you want to eat apples as opposed to something else. It's not really that important of a difference so you can stick with just o if you're more comfortable with it.


Lesson 9 Vocabulary
:

ringo
tegami
hon
kouen
gakkou

koora

o
ni
ga




apple
letter
book
park
school
cola

object marker particle
particle meaning 'to'
emphatic object marker

-masu positive present/future verb tense
-tai 'want to' verb ending
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