# I wish (for me, for you) ...



## ThomasK

..; a happy and inspirational New Year - and thanks for all your cooperation ! But: is _*I wish (a fish *- for myself) _and *I wish you (a whale) *translated using the same verb in your language?  


Dutch : *wensen *can be used in both meanings, but *toewensen *could be used as well (the _toe_- refers to direction, just like the English _to_) ---_ Ik wens jou - en mij - een gelukkig [happy] Nieuwjaar !

_German: *wünschen *only._ (Ich wünsche Dir - und mir - ein glückiches [_happy_]/ frohes [_happy-clappy _?] Neujahr) 

_French: only *souhaiter*, I think._ 


(But isn't it strange? Could the basic meaning be 'to wish someone something' (and so also myself) ???)_


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## 涼宮

Hello again Thomask and Merry Christmas 

As you already may guess Japanese is weird.

To say *to wish + noun*. Japanese uses several ways: 

*1)* 1rst way is: conditional ～ら (ra) + いい (ii) good + な (na) this な is a particle to express emotion/emphasis. *2nd way*: conditional ～ば + いい good + な+ と思っています _to omotteimasu_ or と思う_ to omou_. lit: I'm thinking that.... (yep, no verb to wish is used).

For instance:

I wish a dog! 犬がいたらいいな！ _inu ga itara ii na!_ = if existed a dog it would be good! you can also say it with と思う at the end and the meaning would be the same, probably a little stronger.

*2)* There is also another way to say I wish and also used for I hope. You have 2 ways, one when you hope something good happens to you, and another if you hope something good happens to other.

といいです _to ii desu_ (others), といいんですが _to iin desu ga_ (myself). Those are formal versions, they can have changes.

For instance:

早く元気になるといいです _hayaku genki ni naru to ii desu_ I hope/wish you get better soon. Lit: if soon you become energetic/vigorous it's good.

公園に着くとあまり人たちがいないといいんですが _kouen ni tsuku to amari hitotachi ga inai to iin desu ga_. I hope/wish it's not too crowded when I get to the park. (lit: if there aren't many people upon arriving to the park, it'd be good, though.) 

To say *I wish you*, in this case you use the verb to wish inoru 祈る or 願う negau and also the optative ように youni.

あなたに素晴らしい未来が開けることをお祈りします _anata ni subarashii mirai ga akeru koto wo o onori shimasu_. I wish you a bright future (humble). (lit: I pray/wish the fact that a marvelous future opens to you)

あなたにとって良いクリスマスでありますように。 _anata nitotte yoi kurisumasu dearimasu youni_. I wish you a Merry Christmas (lit: hoping/wishing to you it is good Christmas)


When it comes to Japanese expect the strangest things because you'll probably get them . With all its merits Japanese is isolated and also agglutinative. No matter if you already speak 3,000 languages, you will always start from scratch in Japanese. It simply doesn't share most things with other languages.

I hope this was interesting


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## Arath

Yes, we use the same verb - *пожелавам*

*Пожелавам си риба* (*poželavam si riba*). - *I wish myself a fish*. Word by word translation: *Пожелавам* - I wish. *Си* - to one/my/your/him/her/it/our/their-self, in this case to myself, the short form of the dative reflexive pronoun, that indicates that the indirect object is the same as the subject. *Риба* - fish (the direct object).

*Пожелавам ти кит* (*poželavam ti kit*). - *I wish you a whale*. Word by word translation. *Пожелавам* - I wish. *Ти* - to you, short form of the second person dative pronoun, meaning that the indirect object is the second person (you). *Кит* - whale (the direct object).


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## ThomasK

Great contribution, 涼宮! I need some days, to fully explore it ;-), but great !

I suppose the verb can also be followed by a subclause or kind-of to + inf., when referring to the speaker... (Thanks)


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## apmoy70

In Greek I'd use the same verb also:
«Εύχομαι» ('efxome)--> _to wish_. In Classical Greek the verb «εὔχομαι» ('euxŏmæ) described the offering of prayer. A derivation of the feminine noun «εὐχὴ» (eu'xē, ef'çi in Modern Greek) which in the ancient language meant the _prayer, wish, aspiration_, while in Modern Greek describes the _wish, aspiration_. PIE base *eugʷh-/*wegʷh-, _to speak solemnly, vow_; cognate to Sanskrit वाघत् (_vāghat_), Lat. _vovēre_, Eng. _vow_, Fr. _vouer_, Sp. _volar_.


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## jazyk

It is the same verb in Portuguese: _desejar_. The noun is _desejo_. When you wish something abstract, like happiness, health, etc., you can also use the word _votos, _as in Meus votos de felicidade pelos seus 50 anos! (My wishes of happiness for your 50 years).


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## ThomasK

Interesting link with _to vow _in Greek, which now turns up in Portugese as well. . I am a little surprised though, as the Dutch etymologiebank.nl refers to longing, maybe greed (_begeren_); that seems like the opposite, doesn't it? But in Portugese the desejo might very well refer to desire, as well, though I wish ;-) Jazyk could confirm that. 


> Verwant met [related with] Sanskrit _vāñchā-_ ‘wens’, _vā́ñchati_ ‘begeert, verlangt’; *< pie. *unH-sḱé-*, een afleiding van de wortel [derived from the root] pie. _**uenH-*_* ‘begeren’* bij → *waan *[which is thinking falsely].



It still seems strange to me that vowing and desiring are linked when looking for the root of wishing - or does one only vow what one desires oneself, what is worth the while ???


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## Rallino

In Turkish, there are two verbs: *Dilemek* (Old Turkish) and *Temenni etmek* (Arabic: _tamannī _تمنّي)

*Dilemek *is _to wish, _and can be used both for oneself and others. 

Just like English, which, for a single concept, usually has one Germanic word and one Latin word which is more formal/sophisticated. e.g.: brotherhood (Germanic) vs. Fraternity (Latin)

Turkish, usually for abstract concepts, has one Turkic and one Semitic word, which is more than often more formal.

*Temenni etmek *is the Arabic counterpart of _dilemek. _It litterally means _to make a wish_, it is used solely for others. (It's reserved for formal occasions.)


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## ThomasK

Indeed, there is _wish _and _vote _in English, but their meanings seem quite different, don't they - although one could say that voting is expressing a wish, I now realize. But there is something like a vow, but I am not so sure there is a clear link. French does have _souhaiter _and indeed _voeux (de Noël), _but not _voter _in that connection; yet, there seems to be a connection.


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## mataripis

In Tagalog it is expressed as 1.) Hiling ko sana  (i wish)(i hope)   2.) Kahilingan ko (my wish)     / I wish for you a good fortune = kahilingan ko ang magandang kapalaran para sa iyo.


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## ThomasK

Wishing and hoping are the same then? 
What is the root link between (1) and (2) ? [ling ko]? 

Could you give me a word-for-word translation of (3) 


mataripis said:


> Kahilingan ko (my wish) / I wish for you a good fortune =
> kahilingan ko *[my wish ? I wish ?]
> *ang magandang kapalaran *[happiness ? A lot of succes ?]
> *para sa *[for ?] *iyo *[you]. *



Thanks !


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## mataripis

ThomasK said:


> Wishing and hoping are the same then?
> What is the root link between (1) and (2) ? [ling ko]?
> 
> Could you give me a word-for-word translation of (3)
> 
> 
> Thanks !


 exactly! you're right!


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## AutumnOwl

Swedish:
Jag önskar det vore sommar - I wish it was summer
Jag önskar att jag var i London - I wish I was in London
Jag önskar er alla ett Gott Nytt År! - I wish all of you a Happy New Year!
Jag tillönskar er alla ett Gott Nytt År! - I wish to all of you a Happy New Year!
Med en tillönskan om ett lugnt nyårsfirande - With a wish (to) a peaceful new year-celebration

_Önska_ is the common word for wish in Swedish, but _tillönska_ - wish to - can also be used, especially used in sentences that are more "impersonal", such as the last one in my example.


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## ThomasK

Could it be that _till_- is a prefix comparable to _zu_- in German, meaning something like towards (in Dutch _toe_-)?


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## 涼宮

ThomasK said:


> Great contribution, 涼宮! I need some days, to fully explore it ;-), but great !
> 
> *I suppose the verb can also be followed by a subclause or kind-of to + inf., when referring to the speaker.*.. (Thanks)



I don't understand very well what you mean here.  Could you rephrase it please?


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## ThomasK

I am sorry. I just meant that you can probably use _wish _with a verb, i.e., an action, as in _I wish to go to Slovenia next year_.

BTW: a German linguist pointed out to me that wishing (for) something might be like wanting something but taking into account lots of social factors (others, for example): I just express my desire, while simultaneously expressing the willingness to accept any outcome depending on the circumstances...


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## 涼宮

Now I see. Well, let me tell you that ''to wish to'' is not a set expression, I mean, there are several ways to translate it depending on formality. To tell you another interesting thing of Japanese. To say *to want to*, you don't use a verb but the verb is conjugated to the form ''to want'', yes, it is marked grammatically. Weird eh?  And the ～たい (tai) is added to the stem of a verb and behaves as an adjective. in Japanese adjectives-i have a set of conjugations.

So, let's explore the ways to say 'to wish to''

*First way*: ～たい ～_tai_ (to want can mean to wish too)

年を取りすぎないうちにまた英国へ行きたい。 _toshi wo tori suginai uchi ni mata eikoku he ikitai._ I wish to visit again England before I get too old. (lit: during the time I am not too getting age, I want to go to England again). 行く to go > 行きたい _ikitai_ to want to go. 

*Second way*: ～たいものだ/です ～_tai mono da/desu_. (da=informal/desu=formal). This time you use the abstract word _mono_ which means ''thing'', in this case it is to emphasize what you wish to do. So depending on context it could be translate as ''I would like to'' (Japanese doesn't have a set expression for that either)

いつかその研究所で働きたいものだ。 I wish to work in the laboratory some day. _Itsuka sono kenkyuusho de hatarakitai mono da._ 

*Third way*: causative voice + いただきます _itadakimasu_.  _Itadakimasu_ is the humble form of the verb to receive もらう _morau_. (Japanese has 4 degrees of politeness; Informal, formal, honorific and humble). You conjugate a verb to causative voice to express you make someone do something or you let someone do something. But when combined with the verbs that express favors, to receive, it means *to take the liberty of doing something*. This is not always translated as ''to wish to'' it depends on context, it's just a possibility.


7月13日土曜日に『オーストラリアン』紙に掲載されていた安全管理主任に応募させていただきます。 _shichi gatsu juu san nichi  douyoubi ni 「oosutorian」 kami ni keisai sareteita anzenkanri shunin oubo sasete itadakimasu_. I wish to apply for the position of Chief Safety Officer as  advertised in The Australian on Saturday the 13th of July. (lit: I take the liberty of doing the application to...) させる _saseru_ is the causative form of the irregular verb する _suru_ to do. (in japanese it only exist 2 irregular verbs, to do and to come. _suru_ & _kuru_)

The most common one is to use the -tai form. In case you wonder, to say ''I wish + pronoun + were'' uses something different, and no verb to wish is used.


I hope this was interesting for you  now you know more Japanese, you might end up studying it 

PS: I wish for can be translate in different ways too.


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## ThomasK

It is amazing indeed, I am quite amazed, also at the way you present this information in so clear a way! What strikes me most is that the modality is added at the end. That must lead to a different attitude with respect to a statement, I guess: one cannot know what one means before that person has come to the end. IN fact the notion 'wish' is not different from want, or is there some way of showing that something one wants is only a wish, not something one wishes to insist on. 

The causative construction is not quite clear to : 'to take the liberty of doing something' does not seem like a causative to me , or ... ? 

I am not insisting on an answer, but when referring to ''I wish + pronoun + were'' , another verb form is used, you mean, I guess. There seems to be no clear link between the constructions used for wishing for yourself and wishing that someone ...


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## 涼宮

ThomasK said:


> It is amazing indeed, I am quite amazed, *also at the way you present this information in so clear a way*! Thank you! I will be a translator so I can't write haphazardly, now can I ?  What strikes me most is that the modality *is added at the end*. *That must lead to a different attitude with respect to a statement, I guess: one cannot know what one means before that person has come to the end*. IN fact the notion 'wish' is not different from want, or is there some way of showing that something one wants is only a wish, not something one wishes to insist on.
> 
> The causative construction is not quite clear to : 'to take the liberty of doing something' does not seem like a causative to me , or ... ?
> 
> I am not insisting on an answer, but when referring to ''I wish + pronoun + were'' , another verb form is used, you mean, I guess. There seems to be no clear link between the constructions used for wishing for yourself and wishing that someone ...



Yes, precisely that, Japanese behaves like Turkish, verbs at the end. In fact, Japanese is weird compared to other languages when it comes to order. Because, for instance, since there is no existence of relatives pronouns like which/what/that to connect clauses, the way Japanese expresses that is by turning an entire clause into an adjective-like and using it to describe the 2nd clause. And also you must wait until the end to know what's going on, because the main idea goes at the end and the final idea goes at the beginning. That is one of the reasons that interpreting Japanese is difficult because the order is too different from English/Spanish/German/Russian, etc.

A little example of subordinate clauses:

The person I saw was your younger sister.　見た人は君の妹だった _mita hito wa kimi no imouto datta._  So, literally, it is something like *the person seen* was your younger sister. (In Japanese you cannot say brother/sister without specifying if they're older or younger)


The causative is just part of the expression to take the liberty of doing something, perhaps grammatically it doesn't have to do with causative per se. But, that's the way you say it .


The thing I told you in the other post of toii desu and toiin desu ga can work to say I wish + pronoun + were. That's one of the options. But the usual way is to say conditional ば(ba) or ら (ra) + よかった (yokatta) + のに (noni). _Yokatta_ is the past tense of the adjetive _ii_ (good). _Noni_ can mean stuff like ''in order to/despite or used to express frustration at the end''

Example:

一人っ子だったらよかったのに _hitorikko dattara yokatta noni._ I wish I were an only child. (lit: if were only child, would've been good)

It doesn't change if referring to you or someone else when you use _yokatta._


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## ThomasK

Great information, thanks again !


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## 涼宮

Oh, I forgot, and to add an extra but important information about to want ～たい _tai_, in Japanese it is only used when I want something or I ask a question, Japanese regards -tai as something personal therefore you cannot guess what others want. If I want to say a 3rd person wants something I have to use ～たがる -_tagaru_. As in he wants to marry her= 彼は彼女と結婚したがっている。 _kare wa kanojo to kekkon shitagatteiru. _

Do you think Japanese is too complicated? 

Do widzenia!


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## Anja.Ann

Hello everybody 

In Italian (much easier  ):

I wish (a fish for me): Desidero (un pesce) per me - first person singular 
I wish (you a Happy New Year): Ti/vi auguro (un felice anno nuovo) - all other persons


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## ThomasK

As for Japanese, *涼宮*, it is complicated indeed, but the interesting thing is that it throws some new light on the subject - and that is amazing, very much worth the while, food for thought, etc. !

Italian: interesting that it differs from French in this respect. Does _auguri _refer to the Latin custom (predicting fortune, I believe) ?


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## Anja.Ann

Hi, ThomasK 

Quite so! 
Augurare comes from Latin _Auguràri, àugure, àugurem - àuger_: predire (to foretell, to predict ); "àuger"  comes from _àv-is_ (àu-is) that means “uccello” (bird) and from here to   _"Auspice_" for “_avis-spicem_” from _àvis_ (uccello=bird) and _specio_ (guardo=I look) : “I look at/observe the birds”; in ancient Rome  “Auspice” was the name of important priests who, based on the flight and behavior of birds, could foretell the future. 
“Auspicio” (omen, auspice, sign) is a synonym of “augurio”.


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## ThomasK

Great information. And then the link between predicting and wishing is fairly plausible (though I do not see that link turn up in Dutch)...


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## Anja.Ann

Yes, Thomask, and it's also interesting to note that "to augur" in English means "to predict": I think it comes from "augur" that is the English name for "augure" (tody's name of the prophet, "indovino") who, as I was saying in my above post, was a prophet (indovino) in ancient Rome 

EDIT
BTW, Happy New Year!


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## 涼宮

ThomasK said:


> As for Japanese, *涼宮*, *it is complicated indeed*D at least it's probably the easiest language on earth to pronounce for everyone), but the interesting thing is that it throws some new light on the subject - and that is amazing, very much worth the while, food for thought, etc. !



Happy new year! 

And again I forgot to add another thing of to want, sorry,  I don't know what happened to me. 

In Japanese the -tai/-tagaru form only works when you want *verbs*. If what you want are *nouns*, the adjective 欲しい _hoshii_ is used (be sure to pronounce the double -i, if you say 1 -i it becomes ''star'' 星 _hoshi_). No related to -tai. (Like Italian in JP. double consonants and double vowels are extremely important or the meaning can change)

For instance:

I want a dog 犬が欲しい _inu ga hoshii_.

Perhaps you might have thought of something like that since to use -tai you need to conjugate the verb.

The last information about to want is that you need to use _hoshii_ to tell other people what you *want them to do*. Because, as I told you, -tai is personal. The verb is conjugated to te-form and you add _hoshii_.

For instance:

I want you to rescue her. 彼女を助けて欲しい。　_kanojo wo tasukete hoshii_

Here you have information about the te-form. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_verb_conjugations_and_adjective_declensions#Te_form

Now I hope I don't forget anything else 

Auf wiedersehen!


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## ThomasK

Well, my conclusion is that Japanese is amazing, and intriguing. Especially the fact that modality (...) is put at the end, seems strange to me; I suppose it makes communication different. 

How would you literally translate I want a dog 犬が欲しい?  _inu/ ga hoshii. _I just used Google translate to check the meanings of the different parts and got: 


> 犬が/ the dog
> 欲/ greed
> しい/ new


How do you feel about those associations ? (By the way: adding space between the second and the third element led to a subclause: _If you want a dog... ;-) )_


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## 涼宮

If I have to translate literally 犬が欲しい would be _as regard to dog, it's desired. _

You cannot separate しい from the kanji, because しい in this case it's part of the kanji, that is called okurigana. Okurigana is what is outside of the kanji, which is the part that can be declined/conjugated. Okurigana can only be something in hiragana not kanji or katakana. You can make it an analogy with French. 

Grandir = verb
Grand =kanji
-ir= okurigana (what changes)

That is totally different from Mandarin, a hanzi cannot be modified, therefore nothing like stems/okurigana or something exists, everything is changed with auxiliaries. That's how Mandarin works.

犬 _inu_ means dog

欲しい _hoshii_ it's the adjective for desired/in need/wanted.

が _ga_ is a very problematic particle.

In Japanese articles the/a do not exist. This particle in this case is kind of marking the object for _hoshii_, since _hoshii_ is not a verb it cannot take the accusative を _wo_. But you can take it as a set phrase instead of analyzing it, because you always use が with 欲しい.

Here you have an interesting article of _wa_ vs _ga_, a very polemic subject even to natives themselves.

http://nihonshock.com/2010/02/particles-the-difference-between-wa-and-ga/

PS: Despite all the years of Google translator, Japanese is still one of the worst languages he translates, since it's the hell of a different language, Google simply cannot get even the basic patterns for Japanese in some topics. Japanese is too context-dependent, much more than English or any other language (But I think Korean also enters in this category). Because Japanese does not only pays attention to the  gender of the speaker but also the feelings with which something is said, politeness, tense, and nuance, tiny details that some languages don't even bother to stress. That is why is hard to master properly Japanese.


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## ThomasK

J*ust using this to wish you all a Happy New Year and to thank you for any contributions to any of my threads... *

The wish concept (I wish to do something + I wish you a HNY) does not seem to be that simple. Wishing does not senso strictu exist in some languages and/or this variation for myself/ to you is not that common either.


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## Awwal12

Compared to English, the Russian analogue (v. imperf. желать - zhelát' [ʐɨ̞'ɫatʲ]) isn't fully equivalent. In modern Russian it's used almost exclusively for wishing something to somebody (oneself potentially included), but not for wishing something to happen; even if the dative argument is omitted, it simply becomes a 2p.sg. zero argument (i.e. "желаю счастья" necessarily implies "I wish happiness _to you_"). For wishing something to happen without relation to any benefactors, one must use the verb "хотеть" (v. imperf. hotét' [xɐ'tʲetʲ] ~to want) - or, possibly, the related predicative phrase "хоть бы" (khót' by ['xodʲbɨ̞]) which directly attaches verbs in the subjunctive mood (morphologically it's always identical to the respective past tense forms).

Also one could note a slightly different syntax. English uses "to wish" with subordinate complement clauses only in the sense of wishing something to happen (attaching both a benefactor NP and a complement clause would create a mess; "I wish (to) you (that) you would have a lot of fun / (that) he would finally give up to your demands" is hardly grammatical and by no means idiomatic). Russian, on the other hand, uses such possibility quite extensively. Curiosly, the main clause may be omitted whatsoever, so the whole wishing is expressed by a bare subordinate clause starting with "чтобы"/"чтоб" subordinate conjunction (chtóby/chtób ['ʂtɔbɨ̞ / 'ʂtɔp]; its other possible use is introducing adverbial clauses of purpose) and containing a verb in the subjunctive mood. It's also remarkable because the zero benefactor in that case may be not necessarily 2p.sg. (likely because it's not quite clear which verb the main clause contained: "хотеть" or "желать"), and probably it would be the most idiomatic way to wish something to oneself; "желаю себе... " (zheláyu sebé... [ʐɨ̞'ɫaʉ sʲɪ'bʲɛ] ~(I) wish to.*self*) sounds pretty strange after all.


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## ThomasK

Thanks a lot. The main distinction I wanted to make was: wishing something to others and wishing for oneself. I suppose you are using  желать for both. But I used a formula (for the latter) like *V-wishing  + *[*clause*] something to happen *+ [dative/ receiver/...: *for myself, generally redundant for us as well, showing that the basic meaning is wishing-for-oneself], whereas that was only a coincidence. Is your variation simply due to some lack of valency of желать, or might there be a semantic argument for that? It might be interesting to refer to some examples showing the various uses. (Thanks in advance)


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## Awwal12

ThomasK said:


> I suppose you are using желать for both.


Basically yes, but also see the small addendum.


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## ThomasK

Awwal12 said:


> Curiosly, the main clause may be omitted whatsoever, so the whole wishing is expressed by a bare subordinate clause starting with "чтобы"/"чтоб" subordinate conjunction (chtóby/chtób ['ʂtɔbɨ̞ / 'ʂtɔp]; its other possible use is introducing adverbial clauses of purpose) and containing a verb in the subjunctive mood.


 I must say I had a hard time trying to understand, but that is due to the fact that I am not quite familiar with certain linguistic terms anymore. But I think I have come to understand the (main) point. This "I wish that ..." seems to be fairly uncommon in English, but I think:
1. Isn't there a very popular phrase in various languages like "*I wish I had (not)...*"?
2. Isn't there a phrase in English "*I wish for you to *have the best of luck" for example? Very special, very English, this use of "for you"...
3. Somehow the subjunctive form (not sure it is called a subjunctive) is a wishing form: "*Het ga je* goed" (= [ a lexical variant] May you fare well)/ "*The Force be* with you"


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## Awwal12

Please note that English "to wish" has different government models depending on the exact sense and the arguments present.
"I wish for justice".
"I wish him good luck."
"I wished good luck to John."
"I wish (that) it weren't true."


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