Friday, May 19, 2017

Using て + ほしい to Express Wants

So far I've learned two ways of expressing desire in some form - either using the verb ending たい, or using a noun with ほしい. There's a third way to express desire, and it's used for stating what you want someone else to do. The following pattern is used:

Person に + て form verb + ほしい

The "person" above refers to the person or people whom you want to complete the specified action.

兄の友達にアパートから出てほしい。
I want my brother's friends to leave the apartment.

彼氏に指輪を買ってくれてほしい。
I want my boyfriend to buy me a ring.

アヤトにご飯をおごってほしい。
I want Ayato to treat me to dinner.

弟にもうすぐ就職してほしい。
I want my little brother to find a job soon.

There are two ways to say you don't want someone to do the specified action. One is conjugating ほしい to the negative form as ほしくない. The other is negating the verb as ~ないで, rather than using the て form.

明日スバル出てほしくないよ。
I don't want Subaru to leave tomorrow.

来年アリスに日本に行かないでほしい。
I don't want Alice to go to Japan next year.

カナトにもうサボってほしくない。
I don't want Kanato to skip class anymore.

レイジに教科書を忘れないでほしい。
I don't want Reiji to forget his textbook.

Note that this, like the other ways of expressing desire, is a private predicate, meaning that it can only be used to express your own wishes. Also note that ほしい is typically written using kana in this case.

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