〜たい: How to Say 'Want to' in Japanese (with 12 Examples)

What it means

〜たい is how you say you want to do something — and it's one of the first patterns that lets you stop just describing facts and start sharing how you actually feel. It expresses your own desire (or, when you ask a question, the other person's).

Two little things make たい stand out, and once they click, the rest is easy:

1. It hooks onto the verb stem, not the dictionary form.
2. After that, the whole word acts like an い-adjective — not like a verb at all.

There's one more thing worth knowing up front: because たい is about a personal feeling, you normally use it for yourself (in statements) or for the person you're talking to (in questions). To talk about what someone else wants, Japanese gently switches to 〜たがる — we'll get to that, so hang tight.

A quick feel for it

Picture ordering at a restaurant with a friend. They turn to you and ask:

何が食べたい？ — "What do you want to eat?" 私はラーメンが食べたいな。 — "I want ramen."

That back-and-forth — asking the listener with たい, answering about yourself with たい — is the pattern's bread and butter. Get comfortable with that little exchange and you've got most of it.

How to build it

It's a simple two-step move:

From there, just treat it like any い-adjective and you'll get every form right:

Notice there's no special "polite negative verb" form to memorize — because たい is an adjective now, you just say 行きたくないです (or the slightly more formal 行きたくありません). That's the whole payoff of it behaving like an い-adjective.

A small but handy point: が or を?

Here's a friendly little quirk. With たい, the object particle を can quietly become が — especially when the desire is strong or immediate:

• 水を飲みたい。 / 水が飲みたい。 — both mean "I want to drink water."

You can always play it safe with を. The が version just puts a little extra spotlight on the thing you want. Both are correct, and both turn up on the JLPT, so it's nice to recognize each. In casual speech you'll hear が a lot when someone really craves something: ビールが飲みたい！

Let's see it in action

A few notes on using it naturally

• Softening it. Tacking on 〜たいと思います / 〜たいと思っています ("I'm thinking I'd like to…") makes a wish sound more modest and polite — handy in interviews or with people you've just met.
• Don't use it to offer. "Would you like some coffee?" is not コーヒーを飲みたいですか (which sounds like you're prying into their desires). Use an invitation instead: コーヒーはいかがですか or 飲みませんか.
• It's a feeling, so keep it personal. たい works for you and, in questions, your listener. For anyone else, see たがる below.

What about other people's wishes?

Since たい peeks inside your own feelings, describing someone else's desire as plain fact calls for 〜たがる:

Why the switch? Because in Japanese you can't directly know what's inside someone else's head — you can only report what you observe. たがる literally adds that "shows signs of wanting" nuance. Curious about the details? Here's the full guide: 〜たがる explained.

たい vs ほしい — wanting to do vs wanting a thing

One more pair worth nailing down, because English uses "want" for both:

• 〜たい = want to do an action (a verb): ケーキを食べたい ("I want to eat cake").
• ほしい = want a thing (a noun): ケーキがほしい ("I want cake").

Same craving, different target — verb vs noun. More here: ほしい explained.

Quick recap

• たい = want to do; build it from the ます-stem + たい.
• It conjugates like an い-adjective: たくない, たかった, たくなかった.
• を can become が to spotlight the wanted thing.
• Use it for yourself / the listener; for others, use たがる.
• Wanting a thing? That's ほしい, not たい.

Your turn

Give it a try — a little practice makes this one stick fast:

Take the full N5 〜たい drill →