Russian Language Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for students, teachers, and linguists wanting to discuss the finer points of the Russian language. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
This quite a short question. I was wondering how to express in Russian the sentence "I wish!" without any direct object. As a silly example, in English you could say
— Have you finished your project? — I wish!
Would in Russian make sense to just say Я хотел бы or Я хотелось бы?, without any direct object or would it sound weird? Or is there any idiomatic expression or word that means exactly this, like for example "ojalá" in Spanish?
Thanks!
Если бы
- Ты уже доделал свой проект?
- Если бы!
This applies specifically to the exchange in your example.
I'm not sure though how you envision its use in other cases. Check what Multitran has to offer for ojalá
Have you finished your project?
"Have you finished your project? — I wish!" if "i wish" here means something like "not finished but i wish to finish" ... you can say "мы работает над этим".
if you are answer "я хотел бы", or "я хочу" it can be mean (or be interpreted) what you aren't sure to able finish this project.
