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大学で勉強をしたいです。
大学で勉強したいです。
As far as I can tell both translate to - "I want to study at university". I'm just wondering if one sounds more 'natural' in Japanese than the other and indeed whether either structure is more approriate in different situations or not.
大学で勉強をしたいです。
Here, 勉強{べんきょう} is a noun, and したい is the verb being acted on it, so you have something like, "At university I want to do study." However, this direct English translation is a little ungrammatical, and the original Japanese isn't. So, with a little flexibility, perhaps we can capture the Japanese meaning with something like, "At university I really want to do some study!" By acting on the noun with a separate verb, it holds it up for emphasis.
大学で勉強したいです。
Here, 勉強{べんきょう} is made into a verb by attaching したい directly to it without the を particle. It becomes, "At university I want to study." This would most likely be the preferred way of expressing the idea.
Depending on the context in which you were speaking, 勉強をしたい could work, but if all you want to express is your desire to study at university, 大学で勉強したいです is the more natural of the two.
大学で勉強をしたい doesn't sound unnatural because it sounds ungrammatical (like the English), but rather because the focus is weird for this specific sentence.
Jan 14, 2014 at 2:53
勉強をしたい too much.
Jan 14, 2014 at 3:15
勉強をしたい is inherently unnatural, I think it's just unnatural in this case due to the context. I guess we just disagree on that point, which is driving our different explanations.
Jan 14, 2014 at 3:18
[noun]をする construct merely created emphasis over the same noun in a [noun]する without sounding awkward, then that would drive your point home. As it is right now, I'm not sure what part of the context of 勉強 creates awkwardness that would not be there otherwise.
Jan 14, 2014 at 3:25
There is no difference in meaning.
The difference is mainly that when you include the を, it emphasizes 勉強 a little, which is odd for this sentence.
学校で勉強をしたいです
"I want to study in school." (As opposed to doing something else in school.)学校で勉強したいです
"I want to study in school."
With the right context, perhaps the former could be more natural, like if someone was annoying you to play a game or something, you could response 「学校で勉強をしたいですけど」 and it would be perfectly natural.
All that said, this nuance is very faint, I do not think anyone would look at you weird if you said the first thing even if you didn't want that extra implication.
