Hi, I'd like to...

I find that the scariest part about using Japanese when out and about in this beautiful country is blurting out the first few words. If you're shy like me, the process might go something like this...

First, you walk into a crazy knife shop, or a custom kimono store, or... fill-in-the-blank store of your dreams.

Second, you panic silently, because you don't know how to talk to the staff.

Then third, you go home and bask in self-induced shame.

Most of us think that we need to have this incredible fluency to manage transactions like complicated purchases, contracts, etc., but in my experience you only need 1 sentence: I'm looking for blah blah blah.

As long as they know that you want a ticket to Kyoto, or a new blue kimono, or a new bank account, or a sharp, beautiful knife, then the rest of the transaction can usually be managed with lots of body language and the occasional English word or two.

I was trying to think of a formula that we could use in various situations, and this is what I (and Rei) came up with...

1) Saying you want to do something.
～たいんですけど
Note: ～たい form of a verb comes at the beginning.

2) Saying you want something.
～欲しいんですけど
～ほしいんですけど
Note: Noun comes at the beginning.

For the first one, we can say, for example:

And for the second one...

You may already know this, but when you want a thing, you use 欲しい：

But when you want to do something, you use ～たい：

↓　↓　↓
All we have to do when entering a store, then, is:

Add ～んですけど.
↑　↑　↑

Here are some more examples...

Mailing a Package

Getting & Cancelling a New Phone Contract

That same sentence could also be phrased like this:

Returning an Item

Opening & Closing a Bank Account

Buying a TV

The Super List for Your First Week Living in Japan

...is what you just read above. So you might want go over those a few times. ^_^

We don't have too many examples for 欲しい, because we're going look at this more in the next lesson, when we talk about wanting other people to do things.