Quisiera una habitación doble.
I’d like a double room.Quisiéramos verla.
We’d like to see it.(c) The imperfect, i.e. quería, ‘I wanted’, is very common when requesting something
in a shop, restaurant, etc.Quería otra cerveza. I want another beer.
Quería un kilo de tomates. I want a kilo of tomatoes.
Quería éste. I want this one.Quería, ‘I wanted’, softens the expression of wanting, therefore it is sometimes used to
address people you don’t know well or people in authority.Perdone, quería hablar con usted.
Excuse me, I wanted to speak to you.Queríamos decirle algo.
We wanted to tell you something.Desires with regard to something in the past are normally expressed with the
imperfect:Queríamos pasar las vacaciones en Londres, pero no pudimos.
We wanted to spend our holidays in London, but we couldn’t.Quería hablar con Pamela, pero no estaba.
I wanted to speak to Pamela, but she wasn’t in.57.1.2 Gustar
The conditional form of gustar, ‘to like’, is frequently used for expressing desires in
sentences like the following:Me gustaría ir a Egipto. I’d like to go to Egypt.
Nos gustaría alquilar un coche. We’d like to hire a car.
Les gustaría tener un hijo. They’d like to have a child.Note that gustar, which is in the third person singular, and followed by an infinitive,
is preceded by an indirect object pronoun.^58 (p. 340)
57.1.3 Apetecer, tener ganas de, hacer ilusión
These expressions are all very colloquial and common, especially the first two.57.1.3.1 Apetecer, ‘to be appealing to’, ‘to feel like’, ‘to fancy’, is used in a construction similar
to that with gustar, that is, preceded by an indirect object pronoun (e.g. me, te, le) and
agreeing in number with the thing wanted (third person singular or plural). It may be
followed by a noun or noun phrase, an infinitive or a demonstrative pronoun. This
verb is normally found in the present tense indicative, but sometimes also in the
EXPRESSING DESIRES AND PREFERENCES 57.1