want to
Structure
- Verb[stem] + たい
[たい belongs to a group of personal adjectives that can only be used to describe speaker’s/writer’s wishes/desires. If you want to describe someone’s wish/desire you have to use 「verb[stem]+たがる」 construction or indirect speech 「verb[stem]+たいと思う」]
Object of desire can either take particle を or が.
Can I ask a question about this?
Okay, I’ve got that the grammar is Verb[stem] + たい
So the stem of 答える is こたえ, and then you add たい.
And I understand that you then need to put that in the past.
What I don’t understand is how たい becomes たかった for the past.
Is たい a verb? An adjective? And what rule is it following here?
Any help much appreciated!
Hey 
It is so called auxiliary (suffix attached to verbs) adjective. That is why it conjugates like one.
Another example is verb[stem] + やすい
In Japanese nomenclature, it is called 助動詞（じょどうし） - which is translated as “auxiliary verb”. But not all of those suffixes (たい for example 
) conjugate like verbs so it might be misleading.
I see! Thank you so much!
So the auxiliary adjective たい conjugates just like any い-adjective! Got it! Thank you so much!
(Source)
Yes, that is right!
I think it would be helpful to have the past negative as a reference in the structure for this lesson.
Hey 
The past negative conjugation has been added 
Cheers,
In the structure box, it is shown that the polite alternative for たくない is たくありません, but only for たくない.
I know it sounds weird, but is this the same for たくなかった→たくありませんでした?
Maybe even for these? (Honestly doubt it but who knows.)
たかった→たくありました
たい→たくあります.
It simply conjugates like いadjective 
So:
Polite non-past: たいです
Polite past: たかったです
Negative polite: たくないです/たくありません
Negative polite past: たくなかったです/たくありませんでした
are the allowed ones
I hope it helps,
Cheers
I entered なりたい, and it wants me to type なら instead - but the audio is なりたい. Posting in the forum so I can provide a screenshot:
And now, 2 hours later, I got it again, but this time it’s working correctly?
@testing
I have informed the technical part of the team, the answers seem to be correct (なりたい)
Hi, i’m sorry for asking a lot of questions, but I am really trying to understand how the grammar points are used.
In this box is says that it should be used with を or が.
But the examples never use が and even on the examples sentences page only a few use を.
It really confuses me.
Don’t worry about asking questions that’s what these grammar point forums are for (◠ᴥ◕ʋ)
First, it doesn’t say that it should be used with を or が but rather able to use either. When marking an object of desire. So if the sentence doesn’t have that, then there’s nothing to mark. “I wanted to become a police officer” to become なる is always used with に, so no を or が in the なりたい sentences. For the 虫は食べたくない , the は is used for negative contrast instead. The sentence would still work with either を or が.
プロの歌手と歌いたい, again no object of desire. “I want to sing with a pro singer.” If it was この歌(を/が)歌いたい you would use either marker, with が having more emphasis
thanks for the explanation. 
I’m a little confused about this point where it says たい shouldn’t be used to tell someone you want to do something, but in the example sentences, it is used to tell someone else you want to do something. I’m trying to find out what I’m missing here
Welcome to the community! You kinda answered your own question.
You’re right in that たい is used to express to someone that you yourself want to do something. You can’t use it to tell someone else you want them to do something.
“I want to eat ramen” ラーメンを食べたい
vs
“I want you to eat ramen” ラーメンを食べてほしい
