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It's possible to turn a verb into an adjective meaning 'want to...' したい, 食べたい or 飲みたい, but is there any situation where it makes sense to conjugate it as an adverb for words other than ~たくない?

For example:

  • 食べたくなる — He suddenly wanted to eat, he became hungry, etc

  • 死にたく行く — He went there with a desire to die, he went there wanting to die, etc

  • 出たくする — He did so wanting to leave, he did it to leave, etc

or are all these grammatically incorrect or make no sense? I'm aware there are alternative ways of saying all of these phrases but I assume in these situations the nuance would be very different, emphasizing some sort of intent or motive

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    Wonder where you learned to call したい, 食べたい or 飲みたい an "adjective".
    – user4032
    Commented Mar 2, 2017 at 11:33
  • some verb conjugations turn them into adjectives grammar-wise, especially ~たい which can be further conjugated with ~かった, ~くない, ~くて, ~さ (I'm very certain this works, 'The amount/level/degree of which someone wants'), and I don't think it's possible to say ~たい事.
    – Teco
    Commented Mar 3, 2017 at 2:08
  • @Teco I think you can say 〜たい事 - I have seen the expression やりたいこと (things that one wants to do) many times.
    – xuq01
    Commented Mar 3, 2017 at 9:25
  • oh lol, TIL then
    – Teco
    Commented Mar 4, 2017 at 3:13

1 Answer 1

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adjective? (I'm not sure these words are formally adjectives or not.)

したい
"休みが取れたら、したいこと何?" "If you can spare some time off, what do you want to do?"

食べたい
"夏に食べたい果物と言えば、スイカかな" "Speaking of my favorite fruit in summer, it's the watermelon!"

飲みたい
"夏に飲みたいものと言えば、ビールだね"

adjective (I'm not sure the following words are adjective or not.)

食べたくなる — He suddenly wanted to eat, he became hungry, etc
We can see "食べたくなる" as "食べたい+状態に+なる"
In this sentence, "なる" corresponds to "became," then we can't say "食べたく" as the adjective to "なる."

•死にたく行く — He went there with a desire to die, he went there wanting to die, etc
"死にたく行く" is unnatural.
"死にたい+行く" → "死にたくて行く"
ex: "こんなひどい嵐の中を行くなんて、死にたくて行くようなものだ"

•出たくする — He did so wanting to leave, he did it to leave, etc
"出たくする" is also unnatural.
I can't understand the original idea. I guess "出たくなった."

"隣{となり}の客{きゃく}が、たばこを吸{す}い始{はじ}めたので、その店を出たくなった"
The person next to my table in the restaurant begun to smoke, and I did want to leave there.

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