Please explain this sentence

Hello all,

For the moment, I'm mainly using Duolingo to familiarize myself with the Japanese language. Most times I can find additional information online to make sense of the sentences I encounter on the app.

Until this one :

私はあなたに英語を教えて欲しいです

Apaprently, the meaning should be "I want you to teach me English".

But my poor grasp of Japanese grammar tells me it should be "I want to teach you English".

I suppose the crux of thre problem is to decide if  "anato ni" refers to the verb "oshiete", or possibly to "hoshii"?

Any help is welcome. :)

Cheers.

understanding あなたに  is the key, here, meaning "by you"  rather than "to  you"

Good to know, thanks.

But how can one know that oshiete is meant to be the passive form of "to teach"? There is no helpful -reru ending here.

Wouldn't the te-form of oshieru in its usual active sense be written the same way? If so, is it all about context?

PierreH wrote about 2 weeks ago

Hello all,

 

For the moment, I'm mainly using Duolingo to familiarize myself with the Japanese language. Most times I can find additional information online to make sense of the sentences I encounter on the app.

 

Until this one :

私はあなたに英語を教えて欲しいです

 

Apaprently, the meaning should be "I want you to teach me English".

But my poor grasp of Japanese grammar tells me it should be "I want to teach you English".

I suppose the crux of thre problem is to decide if  "anato ni" refers to the verb "oshiete", or possibly to "hoshii"?

Any help is welcome. :)

 

Cheers.

 

 

oshiete houshii vs oshietai

to my understanding the sentence makes sense because -te houshii basically means "I want you to do something for me"

and the "-tai" means "I want to do something myself"

So if you wanted to say "I want to teach you English" you would say

"私はあなたに英語をおしえたいです"

vs

私はあなたに英語をおしえてほうしいです。(I want you to teach me English)

hope that made sense lol