I’m studying the “Te” form verbs paired with “kuru” and “iku”, and after doing some practice phrases, I thought it would be good to check if I’m on the right track with these.
Any help would be appreciated! Just Romaji and/or Kana, kudasai!

“Itte kita deshou?”
“Isn’t that what I’ve been saying?”

“Tanaki-kun ga mainichi gakkou ni aruite kimashita.”
“Tanaki-kun has been walking to school every day.”

“Kanji ga motto muzukashiku natte iku deshou.”
“Kanji is probably going to get harder.”

“Kore kara monogoto ga aratamete iku kamo shiremasen.”
“Thing may start to change from here on.”

Soooo, have I understood this little piece of grammar, or missed it entirely?

ありがとうございます!

-Kachi

I suppose you learnt it like いく describing some further change from now, the present, until somewhen in the future and くる just the opposite, as some change that happened in the past until now, the present. (At least that's how I learnt it)
This explanation, however, implies that the former form is only used in the present and the latter only in the past tense (which is not true). I see you used きた／きました and 行く (and no past-tense of いく which is いった).

I get this corrected often on lang8 and.. it seems like some verbs are taking 来る rather than 行く, vice-versa. I wonder if someone can explain it..

Hmm, I see nobody else has had a go at these. Kachi: those sentences mostly just feel wrong to me.

“Itte kita deshou?”
“Isn’t that what I’ve been saying?”

いってきた without kanji is going to be interpreted as いく + てきた, so here it would be "So you went [to somewhere unstated because clear from context], right?". Possibly in the right context it could be the verb いう as in "went and spoke". But you seem to be trying to use てくる here in the 'gradual process' sense, which doesn't work with いう because saying something isn't a process that takes some time to complete. (cf the Dictionary of Basic Japanese grammar on this.)

“Tanaki-kun ga mainichi gakkou ni aruite kimashita.”
“Tanaki-kun has been walking to school every day.”

あるいてきました here is OK, although the rest of the sentence feels somewhere between odd and wrong in a way I can't pin down. I think I would use は and へ.

“Kanji ga motto muzukashiku natte iku deshou.”
“Kanji is probably going to get harder.”

This one's OK, I think.

“Kore kara monogoto ga aratamete iku kamo shiremasen.”
“Thing may start to change from here on.”

This is wrong because あらためる is transitive and you're trying to use it intransitively. (The intransitive verb is あらたまる but google has zero hits for あらたまていく.)

I also notice from your examples that you've mixed together various different senses of てくる/ていく; I think it's helpful when first learning these to think separately about the 'physical movement' and the more abstract versions. (cf this forum post).

PS: it's worth getting your computer set up with an input method so you can enter kana rather than making us all read romaji :-)

Tori-kun Wrote:I get this corrected often on lang8 and.. it seems like some verbs are taking 来る rather than 行く, vice-versa. I wonder if someone can explain it..

I don't think it depends on the verb. If you could provide some examples where you've been corrected but you can't work out why, that would make it easier to talk about...

行く moves away from the speaker's point of view and 来る moves towards the speakers point of view, whether you're using them physically or temporally or both. You might try rereading your lang-8 corrections with that in mind (and also think if you meant something physically or temporally and if it would naturally be read the other way.)


“Tanaki-kun ga mainichi gakkou ni aruite kimashita.”
This sounds like a physically 'came to school'. And it's combined with 'every day'.

'Every day, Tanaki walked to school.'
(Where the speaker saw Tanaki at school, or is at least identifying with the point of view of those at the school.)
It also sounds like Tanaki doesn't walk to school anymore now.

@pm215, I had wanted to answer b/c you usually end up answering most grammar questions. I actually forgot to hit submit after needing to check DBJG.

Kachi, Do you have Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar? - check out the notes in kuru and iku aux verbs.

Quote:“Tanaki-kun ga mainichi gakkou ni aruite kimashita.”
“Tanaki-kun has been walking to school every day.”

This is the regular aruku + kuru (not V te +aux verb kuru indicating continuation). So just "walked to school everyday". The ga would depend on context (which might be why it sounds odd in isolated exercise sentences.) I could be "It's Tanaki who ...". I think ni is ok. (I tend to think of aruite as an adverbial describing the manner of coming. It's Tanaki who came to school everyday on foot/by car/by bus.)

Quote:“Kanji ga motto muzukashiku natte iku deshou.”
“Kanji is probably going to get harder.”

According to DoBJG, it has the meaning that it will continue getting harder (so maybe "will keep getting harder")

Quote:“Kore kara monogoto ga aratamete iku kamo shiremasen.”
“Thing may start to change from here on.”

hmm, not sure this is the same Vte-iku form. Is the sentence from exercises? "aratameru" is usually transitive. ("o aratameru") "aratamete" could be the adverb meaning "again, another time, finally". "iku" can have a figurative meaning of "go" as in "How did the exam go? ("monogoto ga susumu"). [edit: I have zero natural feel for this sentence. Anyone?]