I had always learned that ～たい was only a suffix for expressing wants, and only for verbs. Lately though I've come across multiple instances of it being used alone, in the form "<noun>たいか？" to say "do you want <noun>?" Is this a super casual usage (anime only perhaps) or am I misinterpreting it?
by -Tesserex-
11 comments
Could you give a more specific example? Because you’re definitely hearing something but noun+tai isn’t a thing.
This is never used with nouns. It’s a verbal form, not a “suffix”. What are the words you’re seeing where it’s used with nouns, and where did you see it?
Not sure what you’re looking for.
If you say you want a certain thing (noun) you may say (が)ほしい. If the noun can be used as a verb (+する) then you would probably want to say ◯◯したい.
Can you be more specific on the question since it’s hard to understand under what circumstances do you want to use this?
Nope, never! 〜たい comes after verb-ます stem. For example:-
行きます = 行きたい;
来ます = 来たい
For nouns, always use が欲しい.
例えば、おもちゃが欲しい。
私は今何かを食べたいです。ピザが欲しいです。
Hope it helps.
Bonus point, if you want someone else to do something use 〜てほしい.
今日はあなたに洗濯してほしい。
I’ve never heard of it attaching to nouns. One theory here is that you’re mishearing / misparsing. It does attach to the ren’yōkei form of the verb (the continuative stem), which is also a nominal form. E.g. 引き出す > 引き出したい where 引き出し might sound like a noun, but here it is a verb.
You might also be missing a sound in there and there may be some omitted particles. If for example the verb is 得る, you might be missing the え in ~得たい when after a noun
No – it’s possible you are misremembering. Or possible that it is trying to represent “awkward speech” or something like that “in universe”.
But noun +たい doesn’t mean (and doesn’t even “feel like”) I want Noun in real life
For nound it’s 〜がほしい。
Maybe you heard “noun+suru+tai”? As in “OOしたい”? and maybe the “し” sound was faint/quick and hence the confusion?
I’ve never encountered any “N+たいか” in my entire life, I think you’re misheard it with something similar to N+(が)したい (want to do something), the common way to say “I want something” is N+(が)ほしい.
I have never heard anything like what you’re saying you’re hearing, at least not to express something that someone wants.
The only thing I can think of that comes close is <noun>隊, like for example ギター隊 or リズム隊, to mean the guitar section or the rhythm section of a band. Is it possible that what you’re hearing is something like that?
No, and when someone in my university class put “大学たい” in a test it became a meme for the rest of the year.