ほしい
“I don’t want to earn my living; I want to live.” - Oscar Wilde
You learned how to change a verb so that it shows what you want to do. Now it’s time to learn how to show what (thing) you want. After this, we’ll look at using both 〜たい form and ほしい in sentences, as well as look at conjugating them to past, negative, and past negative tenses.
The word ほしい is an い adjective, and a lot like the adjectives すき and きらい (in that it’s kind of like a verb, too). It uses the same pattern as すき and きらい, in fact, which makes that a good way to learn how to use ほしい.
audio.mp3この くるま が すき です
I like this car
audio.mp3この くるま が ほしい です
I want this car
The basic pattern is as follows:
[something] が ほしい です
Just like with すき and きらい, the particle が is the only wishy-washy part. Usually it’s going to be が, because you’re identifying something you want (thus the emphasis is on the thing before the が). Sometimes, though, you’ll need to use は for your particle here – that would be when you’re talking about something you want rather than identifying it. Still, 90% of the (and maybe more) time you’ll be using が, which is why we’ll be using the above pattern.
Using the pattern above, there are a ton of things you can do with it.
audio.mp3じてんしゃ が ほしい です
I want a bike
audio.mp3テレビ が ほしい です
I want a television
audio.mp3なに が ほしい ですか？
What do you want?
＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿ が ほしいです
I want a ___________.
Right now we’re staying 100% positive. No past tense, no negative tense, and no past negative tense either. You’ll learn that in a moment. With that in mind, complete the following worksheet. I’ll ask you what you want (in a category) and you’ll use the above pattern to answer it. It’s as simple as switching out the noun, but try not to think of it that way. Construct each sentence and figure out why the sentence is built that way so that you can recreate and use this pattern later!
Also, download this (very very very small) Anki deck and import it into your TextFugu Vocab deck. It’s only one word (ほしい) but I’d love it if you learned it, so you should put it in there.
ほしい on Anki