Want to do~ ～たい
First get the ～ます masu form of the verb you want to do. Then drop the ～ます masu and add ～たい tai.
| たべます tabemasu (to eat) |
|
たべ tabe |
|
たべたい tabetai (want to eat) |
| のみます nomimasu (to drink) |
|
のみ nomi |
|
のみたい nomitai (want to drink) |
| します shimasu (to do) |
|
し shi |
|
したい shitai (want to do) |
Of course if you want to say "do you want to..." Just add ka
ケーキ を たべたい です か？
ke-ki o tabetai desu ka?
Do you want to eat cake?
(4 votes)
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The verb form ～たい is an i-adjective
The verb form ～たい basically lets you express that you want to do something. You conjugate the verb into masu-form and drop the masu-stem, also known as 連用形(れんようけい、continuative form), and then you attach the ～たい to the end of it and you should end up with something like 食べたい、行きたい、飲みたい、and so on. It's also important to know that the ～たい verb form actually works exactly like an i-adjective. Thus you conjugate it just like an i-adjective to change the tense and/or change it into the negative form.
I'll write some simple examples just to get you started. Let's use 食べる（たべる、to eat） in the example.
First you start out by conjugating it into 食べたい which means "want to eat". It can then be conjugated just like an i-adjective to the following possibilities; 食べたくない（do not want to eat）、食べたかった（wanted to eat） and 食べたくなかった（did not want to eat）.
Hope that answers your question.
Wow, Thanks!!!
Really good answer!!! Thank you veery much!!!
Pikos
The negative form?
What about "Don't want to ..."?
Please see LordOfTheFlies'
Please see LordOfTheFlies' response above. :) He forgot to hit the right "reply" link. ;)
is the "desu" necessary?
is the "desu" necessary?
The verb form ～たい is an i-adjective
Since the verb form ～たい basically is an i-adjective, you can drop the です if you want to. But you have to remember that です is the polite copula which you end sentences with if you want to speak politely. In other words, it's safer to go with です if you haven't grasped the concept of politeness in Japanese yet.
Also remember that since it's an i-adjective you can't end it with a だ, but you can just leave out です and it's still grammatically correct.