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I have the following sentence to translate.

```

    家内は、
    日本の海で
    泳ぎたがっているので、
    新しい水着を買わなければならないと言っていました。
    
```

So far I have the following.

```

    My wife
    in the Sea of Japan
    ... so
    she was saying that she needs to buy a new swimsuit. 
    
```

My problem is the `泳ぎたがっている`. I think it means she is `wanting to swim`, but I
would expect that to be written as follows.

```

    泳ぐ - I swim
    泳ぎたい - I want to swim
    泳ぎたくている - I am wanting to swim
    
```

So I don't understand why it's `がって` instead of `くて`. I thought the `たい` form
was considered an i-adjective. And I can't think of any way to get the `て`
form used in the sentence.
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2013-12-15T21:26:47.117
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2013-12-16T02:04:09.967
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question
translation て-form
Translation of 泳ぎたがっている
You can't directly use 〜たい if you are talking about other people's state of
mind. You need to attach 〜がる (which attaches to the root of any i-adj).

> 泳ぐ - (I/he/she) swim(s)  
>  泳ぎたい - I want to swim  
>  泳ぎたがる - He/she (shows signs that he/she) wants to swim  
>  泳ぎたがっている - He/she (is showing signs that he/she) wants to swim

For the most part 〜たがる and 〜たがっている are pretty similar, just a difference in
nuance as to how "current"/"right now" the signs are.

As in your sentence, often the fact that something is happening _now_ is the
relevant part, requiring you to use 〜ている.
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2013-12-15T22:39:57.993
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2013-12-16T02:04:09.967
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answer
```

    泳ぎたい I want to swim
    
```

The above can also be used for others in questions (with friends).

```

    泳ぎたがる - she wants to swim (present tense)
    泳ぎたがっている she is wanting to swim. (progressive tense)
    
```

In many contexts, these two translate to the same English. The latter is the
present progressive; the former is the present indicative. In Japanese, the
present progressive is often used to indicate a state rather than an activity
in progress. (English does the same).
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2013-12-15T22:45:43.380
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answer