Other's Desires: ～がる

We need to be careful when talking about other people’s emotions or feelings—I’m talking grammatically here. Japanese makes a distinction between what you know based on direct experience and what you believe based on judgement. When we’re talking about other people’s emotions and feelings, only the latter applies—we cannot know directly how someone feels because we cannot be them. In English, we sometimes make this distinction with words like “seem” or “look”:

寂さびしそうな顔かおをしているけど、大丈夫だいじょうぶ？

You look lonely. Is everything alright?

But in other cases it makes no difference whether we’re talking about our own desires or someone else’s.

• I want a beer.
• They want a beer.

Japanese requires this distinction to be made, and to do so we turn adjectives into verbs with 〜がる.

• For i-adjectives we replace the い with がる.
• For na-adjectives we simply add がる.
• Once attached, the word functions as a regular Group 1 (u-verb).

English	Adjective	〜がる
Scary	怖こわい	怖こわがる
Dislike	嫌いや	嫌いやがる
Embarrassing	恥はずかしい	恥はずかしがる

Note that this does not apply to ALL adjectives—only those that pertain to feelings and emotions (as all three of the above do).

彼女かのじょの隣となりでタバコを吸すうとすぐに嫌いやがるよね。

She’ll immediately protest if you smoke next to her.

うちの子こは夜中よなかにかすかな音おとでも聞きこえたら怖こわがって私わたしたちの部屋へやに駆かけ込こんでくるのよ。

If my child hears even a faint sound in the middle of the night he gets scared and comes dashing into our bedroom.

Because our former adjectives are now working as Group 1 verbs, the object particle を is required instead of が.

Crucial JLPT Note: When describing how someone is feeling or what they want right now, we must conjugate 〜がる into the present continuous state: 〜がっている. Using just 〜がる implies a general tendency (e.g., “they tend to want”), whereas 〜がっている means “they want it right now.”

私わたしはビールがほしい。

I want a beer.

彼かれらはビールをほしがっている。

They want a beer (right now).

〜がる is also commonly used with the “want” form of verbs (〜たい) which, as we know, behave like i-adjectives.

English	Dictionary	Want	〜がる
To know	知しる	知しりたい	知しりたがる
To eat	食たべる	食たべたい	食たべたがる
To do	する	したい	したがる

子供こどもは新あたらしいことを見みつけると知しりたがる。

Children are curious (tend to want to know) when they find something new.

彼女かのじょは家いえにいたがるタイプです。

She’s the stay-at-home type.

あいつは女おんなの子こがいるといつもカッコつけたがるよね。

He’s always a show-off around girls.

酔よっ払ぱらって富里みさとさんに告白こくはくしたというのは彼かれが避さけたがる話題わだいだろうな。

I imagine he’ll want to avoid the topic of getting drunk and confessing his feelings to Misato-san.

The grammatical rules are that we can’t make a definitive statement about someone else’s feelings or desires without using 〜たがる. We can, however, say the following:

うちの長男ちょうなんは車くるまが欲ほしいんだって。

My eldest says that he wants a car.

Here we are not making a definitive statement about his desires—just quoting what he said.

沙織さおりは来年らいねん結婚けっこんしたいらしいよ。

I hear that Saori wants to get married next year.

Because we use らしい to infer that it’s something we’ve heard, the use of たい is acceptable.