help with a potential form pleaseeee

[chryuop]

I got stuck lol. I shouldn't have skipped the rough copy to begin with
I am writing a letter to a friend in Japan. Amongst the other things I arrived to a point where, speaking of me being a kid, I wrote 日本語を話すことが....I was about to add できる.
I actually wanted to write "I wanted to be able to speak Japanese"...but I realized to late that できたかった can't be used. I don't want to cancel everything (don't like messes on the letter ).
Can you suggest me a way to fix it? I thought for 30 minutes now, but really can't see any escape LOL.

[chryuop]

Sorry, just had an idea....can it work? Since I had to say anyway "since I wanted to be able to speak Japanese" can this work?
日本語を話すことができるというわけでので。。。

[KyleGoetz]

So what have you written down that you cannot undo? All of できる? Just で?

[chryuop]

Originally Posted by KyleGoetz

So what have you written down that you cannot undo? All of できる? Just で?

I stopped at が. Haven't started the できる yet.

[KyleGoetz]

Originally Posted by chryuop

I stopped at が. Haven't started the できる yet.

How about ...できていきたかった (wanted to become able to) "できていきたい" - Google Search
There are nearly 17 million uses of that phrase in Google's database, so some Japanese people think it's OK!

Or what about 話すことができればいい (over 1M uses) (would be nice if I could speak)? Or できたらいい "できたらいい" - Google Search (18M uses)

[chryuop]

Thank you, I like できていきたかった...I admit that I didn't know this form.

[KyleGoetz]

ていく means "to begin ~ing" or something. I suck at translating it to English, but the point is that something will move towards doing some verb in the future.

中国の人口がだんだん増えていく
China's population will gradually increase

背が高くなったら、バスケをよくやっていく
If I get taller, I will play basketball often

[Sashimister]

I may be late to the party, but we don't use できていきたい to say "I wanted to be able to speak Japanese."

That's 日本語が話せるようになりたかった.

[KyleGoetz]

Originally Posted by Sashimister

I may be late to the party, but we don't use できていきたい to say "I wanted to be able to speak Japanese."

That's 日本語が話せるようになりたかった.

Fair enough. I wondered about the ようになりたかたった, but I don't know why I didn't include it. What's doubly odd is that, now that I think about it, this is the form I use most. :/

I didn't think できていきたい was correct, but it seemed a lot of people were using it, so, without thinking further, I posted it.

My apologies, chryuop. I screwed up.

[Sashimister]

Originally Posted by KyleGoetz

I didn't think できていきたい was correct, but it seemed a lot of people were using it, so, without thinking further, I posted it.

I personally never say できていきたい to mean anything.

When that is used by the few people that do use it, it usually means "I wanna continue being able to ~~." I'd be a clown if I recommended that you guys use it for that meaning or ANY meaning.

I looked at the first 14 examples from the link you provided, several of them are for the meaning I mentioned just above.

The rest are all either typos or used for completely different meanings.

で、きていきたい　＜　「初デートで着ていきたい」, 「普段使いで着ていきたい」 (talking about wearing certain clothes)

できて、いきたい　＜　「予約できて、行きたい時に行 ける」、「おいしいお店が発見できて、行きたいお店が 増える」　(talking about "going somewhere")

I guess this teaches us all a good lesson about googling merely for the size of the search results.