Wanting and "going to" with 要

Structure 要 + noun / 要 + verb

要 (yào) is more concrete and firm than 想. With a noun it means "to want (to have)": 我要一杯茶. With a verb it means "to want to do" or "to be going to / about to": 我要去 ("I’m going to go"). Be careful with the negative: "not want to do" is usually 不想; 不要 + verb is closer to "don’t do it".

Examples

我wǒ要yào一yī杯bēi咖kā啡fēi。
I want a coffee.
我wǒ们men要yào去qù学xué校xiào。
We’re going to school.
你nǐ要yào不bù要yào茶chá？
Do you want some tea?

Levels are indicative: they follow the standard Chinese Grammar Wiki (AllSet Learning) progression, not an official HSK 3.0 mapping. We never assign levels by eye.

This point and the other 370, with audio on every example, inside Wanyu.