LLearn Japanese

How can I say “have to”, to express a desire?

Example sentence: “The food was so good, I had to get more”

Something to express stronger desire than “たい” or “欲しい”, if that makes sense

I know a bunch of ways to say “have to”, to express responsibility, but I’m not sure if I can use that here as well

6 comments

  1. Hmm I would add ~ないと to the end of the verb.
    So 食べないと, I have to eat. So もっと食べないと I have to eat more.

    But I’m sure there are other ways of expressing the same so please correct me if I am wrong.

  2. In the case above, I would still use a たい with ending in ちゃった。

    食べ物がおいしくてもっと食べたくて、また注文しちゃった。

    The food was great and I wanted more so I ordered it again.

    This might convey that the food was so good you were emotionally compelled to order more. If a native speaker corrects me I’ll quietly sit in my corner.

  3. There are a number of ways to express this tbh. The sample sentence you gave could be rephrased in many different ways to give the same overall meaning. One way you could say this is with ずにはいられない, which basically means “I couldn’t help but…” or “I had to …” (you form the ない version of the verb, remove the ない and then add ずにはいられない). There are really a number of ways to express this sentence though,

  4. ~~I know it’s not exactly what you need, but you can say “食べ物はおいしいほどもっと食べたいになった。”~~

    ~~Like “the food was good to the extent of me wanting to eat more”.~~

    ~~But you can also use “have to” with this sentence, just say “食べないといけない” at the end and it would mean “the food was good to the extent that I must eat more”.~~

    ~~This is a formal “must” I think, you can use less formal conjugations too of course.~~

    Edit: I realise my mistake, I used the ほど expression wrong, my sentences are flipped, it should be “もっと食べたくなるほど食べ物がおいしい” and “もっと食べないといけないほど食べ物がおいしい”

  6. There’s various ways to express that relatively directly/literally, including:

    1. たくてしかたがない
    2. たくてしょうがない
    3. たくてならない
    4. たくてたまらない

    Both しかたがない and しょうがない mean something like “it can’t be helped”, so たくてしかたがない and たくてしょうがない mean that you can’t help but want to have/do something.

    たくてならない has a similar meaning to たくてしかたがない and たくてしょうがない, but is more formal and not used very often in everyday speech.

    たくてたまならない is derived from [堪](#fg “たま”)る, which means to (physically) bear/endure, so たくてたまらない is usually used when you’re talking about some very strong physical sensation (like 痛くてたまらない – “it hurts like crazy!”). At the same time, it can be used metaphorically to express a feeling, emotion, desire, etc. that is so strong that you can’t physically bear it (and especially たくてたまらない can be translated as “I’m itching to do…”).

    Also, all of these expressions also work with 欲しくて instead of たくて

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Can someone tell me if this is well written? Do you have any suggestion/Correction? Thanks in advance

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