Learn Japanese Today – “I want to go to Mt. Fuji.”

Jun 01 | Evan | No Comments |

Learn how to express when you want something and want to do something. 

When you travel somewhere new, you probably want to express what you want, such as where you want to go and what you want to eat. In this article, let’s learn how to use”want something” and “want to do something” in Japanese so that when you join the photography tour of Japan, you can express what you want and what you want to do! 

“I want this” and “I want that.” 

At this point, you already know how to say “this” and “that” in Japanese. When you are at a store in Japan and you want to point to something you want to get, which you can hold in your hand, you can use below.

Kore ga hoshii desu. 

これ　が　ほしい　です。

これが欲しいです。

Here “hoshii” is “to want” in Japanese and means “I want this” in English. 

As you already know, when you replace kore to sore or are, you can indicate an item, which is far away from you. 

You also know a possessive, “no.” Thus, if you want to say “I want that book.” it looks like this below. 

Ano hon ga hoshii desu.

あの　ほん　が　ほしい　です。

あの　本　が　欲しい　です。

Let’s learn how to say “I want to go to ~”

Let’s try something a little harder… Are you ready? 

When you visit Japan, I am sure you want to visit everywhere you have long been dreaming of. If you want to indicate where you want to go, you want to say like this below. 

Let’s say “I want to go to Mt. Fuji” first!

Fujisan ni ikitai desu.　（In Japanese, the particle “to” is “ni.”) 

ふじさん　に　いきたい　です。

富士山　に　行きたい　です。

In Japanese, we indicate where we want to go first. Thus, you simply need to change the location you want to go by replacing “Mt. Fuji” to somewhere else you want to go. Why don’t we replace it with “Tokyo Disneyland?” 

Tokyo Disneyland ni ikitai desu. 

とうきょう　ディズニーランド　に　いきたい　です。

東京　ディズニーランド　に　行きたい　です。

*In Japanese, we do not need to put a subject like “I” all the time. If you decide to include “I” it is not wrong, but we know from the conversation that the subject is “watashi” so we can omit it. 

Ru-verb using want to

When you want to use an expression “I want to ~” using a verb is a little more complex. It is because depending on the type of verb, it conjugates differently. Let’s look at a possible scenario when you want to eat miso ramen in Japan while being on a photography tour of Japan! 

Miso ramen wo tabetai desu. 

みそラーメン　を　たべたい　です。

味噌ラーメン　を　食べたい　です。

Here, the verb we are using is “to eat = taberu.” It belongs to a “ru-verb” and when you want to use “want to = ~tai,” you drop off “ru” and add “tai” to the end of a verb. Below are a few examples of ru-verbs and how to conjugate. 

Ru -verb (Drop “ru” add “tai”) 

Taberu Tabetai たる　　　たべたい
Shiraberu Shirabetai しらべる　　しらべたい　
Tsukuru Tsukuritai つくる つくりたい
Oshieru Oshietai おしえる おしえたい
Miru Mitai みる みたい

It’s a lot to learn how to conjugate verbs in Japanese all at once so let’s just stick to “ru-verb” for now and learn more verbs and how to conjugate in the next lesson. 

Before we conclude, here is another example of ru-verb with “to see = miru.” 

I want to see Mt. Fuji. 

Fujisan ga mitai desu. 

ふじさん　が　みたい　です。

富士山　が　見たい　です。

Are you now comfortable to express what you want and what you want to do? This lesson is probably more complex than the previous ones, but don’t worry! Since verb conjugation is challenging, we will continue with how to express when you want to do something with different verbs in the following lessons. Also, there are a lot of verbs to learn so I hope you can play with the ru-verbs I introduced to you today. Let’s pretend as if you are on a photography tour of Japan with your friends and family and use “ru-verbs.” You are now one step closer to travel to Japan with more knowledge of Japanese!