Hello fellow inquisitors of Japanese. In my classroom today - in Balamb Gardens of course - my students and I were gleefully reading through Shiwon Miura's latest novel あの家に暮らす四人の女 when we - to our great befuddlement I must add - encountered the following sentence:
稼いで、いい車乗って、いい女抱きてえなと身の内をたぎらせていたのか。
The problem you see is the てえな. We were unable to ascertain its meaning, despite burrowing through several dictionaries.
Any ideas on what it means?
The ～てえ is an informal, masculine version of ～たい, "want to~~".
たい is a 助動詞. The な is a 終助詞(sentence-ending particle).
You can parse the sentence this way:
「稼いで、いい車(に)乗って、いい女(を)抱きてえな。」と身の内をたぎらせていたのか。
Example:
食いたい --> 食いてえ (食いてぇ、食いてー)
結婚したい --> 結婚してえ (結婚してぇ、結婚してー)
Compare:
知らない --> 知らねえ (知らねぇ、知らねー)
うるさい --> うるせえ (うるせぇ、うるせー)
This is a kind of vowel transform.
"ai" sometimes changes to "e" or "ee".
Other vowel translation:
"ou" -> "u" or "oo"
"てえ" is often used by male, but you should not use this in public.
