たい Form
“I say what I want to say and do what I want to do. There’s no in between. People will either love you for it or hate you for it.” - Eminem
たい form is a whole new verb form that you’ll be learning between now and the end of this page. It’s actually really easy, and really simple, as long as you know the vocab, and as long as you know how to do stem form. It’ll get a little more difficult when you start using たい form in sentences, but still, it’s all things that you’ve done before, meaning that really, this is the only completely “new” thing you’ll be learning.
Here’s the “equation” for turning a regular ます verb into a たい (want) verb.
1. Take your verb: たべます
2. Make it stem form: たべ
3. Add たい to it: たべたい
That is all there is to it. So incredibly simple, as long as you remember those steps. Eventually, you won’t even have to think about it. You’ll immediately work off of stem form and get straight to たい form without having to think about it. Here’s what the above steps did to the verb たべます.
たべます → to eat / will eat
たべ → stem form, no meaning
たべたい → ”want to eat”
Since the verb たべます means “to eat,” the たい form version of this word means “want to eat.” Let’s try this with more verbs.
あいます → あい → a あいたい (want to meet)
みます → み → a みたい (want to see)
しります → しり → a しりたい (want to know)
うります → うり → a うりたい (want to sell)
でます → で → a でたい (want to leave/exit)
わすれます → わすれ → a わすれたい (want to forget)
Hopefully you can start to see how all this works, at least when it comes to changing single verbs over. I’ve created a practice sheet which you can use to practice conversions with.