〜がる: Others' Feelings

There is a rule in Japanese that surprises almost every English speaker: you may not flatly assert what another person is feeling. You can say 私は寒い ("I'm cold"), but you cannot say ×彼は寒い as a plain statement of his current sensation the way English lets you say "he's cold." Feelings like cold, fear, pain, and desire are private — you have direct access to your own but only observe someone else's from the outside. The suffix 〜がる is the grammar that closes this gap: it converts an emotion or sensation adjective into a verb meaning "shows signs of / behaves as if feeling," so 寒い ("cold") becomes 寒がる ("acts cold, is visibly cold"). This page shows how to build 〜がる, why it takes を where the adjective took が, and how it fits alongside the inference forms 〜そう and 〜ようだ.

The core idea: from a felt state to an observed behavior

When you are cold, you report it directly with the adjective. When you look at someone else and conclude they are cold, you are no longer reporting a fact you have inside access to — you are reporting behavior you can see (shivering, hunching, reaching for a coat). 〜がる encodes exactly that shift from private sensation to visible behavior.

Notice that 欲しがる and 怖がる are conjugating like ordinary verbs (欲しがっている, 怖がる). That is the whole point: 〜がる is a verbaliser. The adjective describes a state; 〜がる reports someone displaying that state.

How to form 〜がる

Drop the final of the adjective and attach がる, then conjugate it as a regular godan (Group 1) verb — 寒がる → 寒がります → 寒がって → 寒がった.

For i-adjectives, drop 〜い and add 〜がる (寒い → 寒がる). For na-adjectives, add 〜がる straight to the stem (嫌 → 嫌がる). Verbs of desire built with 〜たい have their own version, 〜たがる, covered below.

〜がる takes を, not が — because it is now a verb

Here is a subtle but important consequence of the verbalisation. The adjectives 欲しい and 怖い mark the thing wanted or feared with が (車が欲しい "a car is wanted," 水が怖い "water is scary"). But once you switch to 〜がる, the word is a transitive verb describing an action-like display, and its target flips to the direct-object particle を.

So the pair is: 私は水が怖い ("I'm afraid of water," adjective, が) versus 犬は水を怖がる ("the dog is afraid of water," verb, を). If you keep が with 〜がる it sounds wrong to native ears. The が-marking of desire and fear lives on the が with 好き, ほしい, できる page; the を here belongs to the verb 〜がる.

〜たがる: reporting someone else's desire

The desire ending 〜たい ("want to do") is itself an i-adjective, and it behaves exactly like the sensation adjectives: you say 私は行きたい ("I want to go") about yourself, but for a third person you must report the observed wish with 〜たがる. Take the verb's ます-stem, add 〜たがる, and conjugate as a godan verb.

The negative 〜たがらない ("doesn't want to / is reluctant to") is extremely common — it is often how you describe a stubborn refusal. There is a fuller treatment of desire on the 〜たがる: a third person's desire page.

〜がる vs 〜そう: observed behavior vs inferred appearance

〜がる is not the only way to talk about someone else's feelings. The appearance suffix 〜そう ("looks like") does a related job, and the difference is real:

• 〜がる reports behavior — the person is actually acting cold/scared/eager. It often implies something ongoing or habitual and can carry a faint note of detachment ("he's making a fuss about the cold").
• 〜そう reports your inference from appearance — they look cold, though they may not be doing anything overt about it.

For a single, momentary impression, 〜そう or 〜ようだ is often gentler; for reporting how someone characteristically behaves, 〜がる is the natural choice. The appearance side is covered on the 〜そう: looks like page.

The person restriction, stated plainly

This is the deep principle worth internalising, because it governs a whole zone of Japanese grammar:

• First person (your own current feeling): state it directly with the adjective. 私は寒い。お腹が痛い。日本に行きたい。
• Third person (someone else's feeling): you cannot assert it as fact. Report the observed behavior with 〜がる, or the inferred appearance with 〜そう / 〜ようだ / 〜らしい.

Honest caveat: this restriction relaxes in certain registers. A novelist narrating a character's inner life can write 彼は寒かった, because fiction grants the narrator access to private minds. In quoted or reported thought (彼は「寒い」と思った "he thought, 'I'm cold'") the adjective is fine too. But in ordinary conversation about a real third person's present feeling, the direct adjective is ungrammatical, and 〜がる / 〜そう is mandatory. Treat 〜がる not as optional vocabulary but as the required repair for that restriction.

Common Mistakes

1. Asserting a third person's feeling directly. The classic transfer error — English lets you say "he's cold," so learners say ×彼は寒い.

2. Keeping が with 〜がる. The verb takes を, not が.

3. Using 〜たい for someone else's wish. For a third person, switch to 〜たがる.

4. Applying 〜がる to your own feelings. 〜がる is for observing others; about yourself, state the feeling directly.

Key Takeaways

• 〜がる turns an emotion/sensation adjective into a verb meaning "shows signs of / behaves as if feeling": 寒い → 寒がる, 欲しい → 欲しがる, 怖い → 怖がる.
• It exists because Japanese forbids flatly asserting a third person's private feelings; 〜がる reports the observed behavior instead.
• The verbalised word takes を for its object, not the が the adjective used: 水を怖がる, 車を欲しがる.
• Desire uses 〜たがる (行きたがる, 話したがらない) for other people; you keep 〜たい for yourself.
• For an inference from mere appearance rather than active behavior, reach for 〜そう / 〜ようだ instead.