nihongo wo benkyou shitai

日本語：	[verb (base 2)] たがっている
日本語：	[adjective] がっている
English:	Shows signs of...

Here's another little surprise; I had never heard of this grammar point before last Thursday and now that I've looked into it a bit, it seems (a) to be very common and (b) very useful. In fact, it's so closely related to the ーたい conjugation that we learn in first year Japanese that I am surprised that I haven't come across it before.

I haven't written a blog entry on the たい conjugation yet, simply because I was pretty sure that I understood it. Not so, it appears; at least not fully. たい is a verb conjugation that adds a want to... aspect to sentences. For example ビールを飲みたい. What I did not realise is that たい can only be used when the subject of the sentence is either the first person (I/we), or the second person (you) in question form. If the subject is the third-person you have to use がっている. When used, it adds a wants to... or seems to... aspect to the sentence.

The conjugation is pretty easy; with verbs you move the verb to base 2 and add た (as in たい), then add がっている. With い and な adjectives, drop the い and な respectively.

English:	He wants to move to Japan this year.
Jenglish:	[this year][he][Japan][move + want]
日本語：	今年、彼は日本に引っ越したがっている。

English:	She looks like she wants to leave.
Jenglish:	[she][leave + looks like]
日本語：	彼女は帰りたがっている。

English:	Despite the warm breeze, they seem to be cold.
Jenglish:	[warm][breeze][despite][they][cold + seem]
日本語：	暖かいそれ風のに、彼らは寒がっている。

インタネットで調べよう！

Example 1:

The first example is the title of a very business-like example about some problems with Japanese Airlines.

日本語：	JAL経営陣との決別！パート２世界の投資家はJAL筆頭株主の座を欲しがっている
Jenglish:	[JAL] [management ranks] [of] [separation/farewell]! [part 2] [world] [of] [investor] [SM] [JAL] [first on list] [shareholder] [of] [seat] [OM] [shows signs of wanting]

Ummmm, a simple-looking sentence, but one with lots of kanji jammed together like sardines. The first problem was the use of との in the first part. Couldn't find a reference to it's meaning and so I've translated it as of. After that we have the subject ('the world of investors') who want something (欲しがっている). I was getting a little confused here so I simply 'ignored' a couple of words. So my translation is: JAL management farewell! The world of investors want JAL shareholders top of the list.


Example 2:

The Japanese are going green like the rest of us. Here's a quick example.

日本語：	企業はごみを欲しがっている！
Jenglish:	[enterprise] [SM] [rubbish] [OM] [wants]

I'm going to be bold here and just translate it - I'm THAT confident! I get Enterprises want rubbish!. It's so easy - it just has to be wrong. Anyway interesting article on eco towns sponsored by the ministy of economy, trade & industry (METI) and the ministry of the environment.

またね・・・