In Japanese, when you talk about other people's wants and desires, you use a different grammatical structure than when you talk about your own. When you give testimony in an American court, you can't say what other people think. You have to make a distinction between what you've heard or thought about others and what you know. Japanese seems to make that distinction as well--you can suppose or assume what someone else wants. But you can't say what they want with the same conviction that you can say what you want.

In English, you use the same expression for "I want a new car." and "My friend wants a new car." But in Japanese, it's different. "(私は)新しい車がほしいです。' and "私の友だちは新しい車をほしがっています。" When you talk about other people's feelings or emotions, you add the suffix 〜がる (shows signs of). This changes the adjective into a verb. Literally you are saying, "My friend shows signs of wanting a new car." That's a perfectly grammatical English sentence, but it's a stylistic monstrosity. The English equivalent is simply "My friend wants a new car."

The construction for "to do V" is parallel. "I want to eat an apple." 私はりんごが食べたいです。"My friend wants to eat an apple."　私の友だちはりんごをたべたがっています。

I always have a hard time thinking of example sentences, but how about this? 私はむすこに部屋をそうじしてほしいです。でもむすこはそうじしたがっていません。What I'm trying to say is "I want my son to clean his room, but he doesn't want to." Is that right?

PS. Kiyo. Now I understand your correction for "I want it to rain." When you want someone else to do something you use Vってほしいです。I just learned that today. It's not in our textbook. But it's an expression I wanted to learn. As a wife and mother, I have a long list of things I want my husband and son to do!

English uses the auxiliary (helping) verb want to express desire for action: I want to V, you want to V, he/she/it wants to V, we want to V, y'all want to V, they want to V. In English, it doesn't make any difference who is doing the wanting. Just add the infinitive form of a verb and you can say what I want to do or what someone else wants to do.

S + want + to V (+ object).
I eat. I want to eat. I want to eat dinner.
I drink. I want to drink. I want to drink coffee.

Typically, in English, you don't use the 〜ing form, even if you are expressing a current, short-term desire. For example, a common mistake of non-native speakers is to say: "I am wanting to eat dinner now." People will understand what you mean, but it's more usual to say "I want to eat dinner now."

Japanese does not use an auxiliary verb. To express your own desires, conjugate the verb by adding 〜たい to the 〜ます stem.
食べるー＞食べますー＞食べたい
飲むー＞飲みますー＞飲みたい
勉強するー＞勉強しますー＞勉強したい

• 毎日日本料理が食べたいです。
• 日本へ行きたいです。
• ブログの友だちと会いたいです。
• 面白い本が書きたいです。

Japanese, like English, makes a distinction between "I want to have" and "I want to do. Learning the Japanese grammar is a little difficult for some students because they seem unaware of the grammatical distinction in English. They think "I want X", where X is either to have something or to do something. This is because in English, the have is usually understood and dropped from the sentence, except for emphasis. "I want [to have] a new car." --> "I want a new car."

When spoken this construction sounds like "I wanna new car". Sometimes, in informal writing, "want a" is written "wanna". This is not correct, but it is conversational and understood, so you'll see it on blogs, in email, and in novels.

In Japanese, for objects of desire, say "Object がほしいです." (As for me, X is desirable.") In this case, there is no verb "to want to have". The focus is not the same as English (actor + verb + object of desire). Instead, the object becomes the topic whose state is desirability. When discussing one's own wants, ほしい is an adjective. So the English "I want a new car." becomes the Japanese. "As for me(は), a new car(が) is(です) desirable(ほしい)."

In English, quite a lot is written about "objects of desire". In love, there is controversy over turning someone into the object of your desire. To "objectify" someone can mean to think of them as a "thing" rather than a person. To want to have them, to possess them, to own them is a kind of enslavement. On the other hand, some people don't mind being slaves to love. Most of us like being objects of desire. We want to be wanted.

In Japanese, ほしい is an i-adjective. ほしいです。ほしかったです。ほしくありません。ほしくありませんでした。Is it okay to use the other form of negative? ほしくないです。ほしくなかったです。

• iPodがほしいです。
• dishwasherがほしいです。
• 大きいな台所がほしいです。
• あたらしいくつがほしいです。
• あめがふることがほしいです。
• あたらしい車はほしくありません。

Actually, I'm not very sure about the last example. My textbook says that in a negative sentence が is replaced by は. As it turns out, I can't think of anything that I really want [to have]. I have enough already. Maybe I'll be able to think of more things in the next lesson. There's plenty I want to do.