もしも with たかった in past tense


> もしも選べるなら、男に生まれたかった。

can someone explain what does this sentence mean? I was born as a man? I
choose to me a man?




> Can someone explain what does this sentence mean?

I'll break the sentence down for you.

もしも選べるなら **(1)** 、男に生まれたかった **(2)** 。

Your sentence consists of two clauses, which are separated by a comma. The
first clause consists of three components: an adverb
([もしも](https://jisho.org/search/%E3%82%82%E3%81%97%E3%82%82)), a verb in plain
potential form (選べる) and [なら](https://jisho.org/search/%E3%81%AA%E3%82%89),
which, in this case, functions as a conjunction meaning _if_.

To create a conditional clause using なら (also called a なら clause), it must
follow an adjective or verb in plain form, which it does. 選べる is in **plain**
potential form.

Now, the second clause consists of three components as well: a common noun
(男), a particle (に) and a verb (生まれたかった) in past affirmative tai-form.

The tai-form of a verb is the form you conjugate a verb into to express a
desire to do something. For example, it changes 'I play football' to 'I
**want** to play football'. To conjugate a verb into non-past affirmative tai-
form we must append the suffix たい to the verb in stem-form. Once done this, to
conjugate it into its past affirmative tai-form, we drop い and add かった.

The stem-form of 生まれる(to be born) is 生まれ, then append たい, so you have 生まれたい
(to want to be born). We now conjugate 生まれたい into past affirmative tai-form by
getting rid of い and appending かった. Finally, we have 生まれたかった (wanted to be
born). As you can see, it conjugates as an i-adjective.

Note that that the verb 生まれる is intransitive and so is 生まれたかった, so it doesn't
take the particle を but rather に in this case. In your sentence, the object of
this verb is 男.

Knowing all the above, we could translate the sentence to:"I would have wanted
to be born as male if you ask me."

We need more context for a better translation.

If you want to read more about tai-form, consult [The Japanese Tai(たい)
form](https://bondlingo.tv/blog/the-japanese-tai-form-expressing-what-you-
want-and-dont-want/).

