ている、ていく、てくる、ては、ても... What if I told you that almost all
these points don't actually exist and don't need to be studied separately, as long
as you understand the core concept of the て form? Let's begin. First, let's dive into ている as this is one
of the most commonly used grammar points. What this "grammar point" really
is- is the て form + the verb いる The て form, as we’ve covered in the previous
video, links things together. But what does いる do? いる is a normal Ichidan verb that means
"something exists and is sentient". If you do not know what an Ichidan verb is, please watch this video on the top right first, as
it explains how Japanese people categorize verbs. We can use いる in a regular sentence like... 「犬がいる」、This is a complete logical
clause that means "dog does exists", and this would be said in, for example: If my friend and I were walking
down the road and I see a dog, I can be like "oh there's a dog" 「あ、犬がいる」 All right now put that aside for
a second and think about this... In English, when have you ever said anything
like "I watch TV" or "I eat" or "I come"? Probably not very often. That's because we say "I'm watch-ING TV" or "I'm
eat-ING" or "I'm com-ING". In Japanese, it's quite similar. For example, テレビを見ている What we've done is attach いる
after the て form of 見る, to see So, “exist - see” or “Exist in a state of see” So if you currently see- you are “seeing”. In other words, Seeing TV, or watching TV. This is why, in Japanese, it is called
the 現在進行形 -- Currently Progressing Form. As you can see, it's quite
similar to English's "ING" You can either walk, 歩く, or
exist in a state of walk, 歩いている. Now some people might say- "But Cheif, why are you complicating this so much? Why not just straight up say ている is -ing" Well, because it's not... To understand this, let's look at two examples: Number one: every morning, I have these clan
battles on this game with my Japanese friends Sometimes, I can't join because I'm
busy editing videos- like this one. My friends could ask 「あれ、チェイフさんまだ寝ている?」 "Cheif-san, still in the state of sleep?" And I can respond with 「いや、起きているよ」 起きる means "to wake up" so 起きている would be "waking up" right? Not exactly. What I'm really saying is "I'm currently awake". Because to "Exist in the state of wake up" is to
both be awake and to be in the act of waking up. English’s “I’m waking up”
does not convey both meanings. Two: Since いる is just a regular ichidan verb,
we can apply regular ichidan conjugations. If I wanted to change this into past tense, I'd do what I mentioned in the previous
video and change the る into a た. テレビを見ていた -- "Existed in a state of watch TV" We can’t do this in natural English. We can be "watching TV",
or could have "watched TV", but we can’t "Watching-ed TV". But what about "I WAS watching TV" then? The problem here is that
this is “A is B” sentence, while テレビを見ていた is an "A does B" sentence. If you start flipping nouns with verbs, and verbs with nouns it's no wonder Japanese feels confusing. So if you're unfamiliar with the only
two types of sentences in Japanese, please watch this video on the top right first. Alright, next, I want to reinforce
that いる is just a regular verb, so what do I do to combine 雨が降っている
(rain exists in the state of fall) with 公園に行けない (is not able to go to park). Feel free to pause if you need to. 雨が降っていて、公園にいけない。 To connect 2 clauses we change
the first engine into its て form. In this case, it is いる, and since いる is
an ichidan verb, we swap the る with a て. So as you can see, the function of the て-form
stays CONSISTENT even in these situations. In other words- this "grammar
point" doesn't actually exist, and is just a combination of 2 simpler elements. Moving on, let's look at ていく and てくる. Try to recall the verbs 行く and 来る while we jump into the first example sentence
by my teacher, the late Cure Dolly Sensei. ペンを持っている。 持つ is a verb meaning "to hold" or
"carry" or "to have in possession" So "exist in a state of have pen". Now if the pen is over there, I'd
have to take the pen and come back. I would say ペンを持ってくる – Take the pen and come. Conversely, we can also say ペンを持っていく,
take the pen and go somewhere else. And a fun thing you can do is put
行く and 来る together, and you get 行ってくる Commonly said as: Japanese people say this
when they leave their house, and it means "Go and come" as in,
go somewhere else, then come back. Now we can also use these more metaphorically. So let's take a look at our base sentence... 雨が降っている -- "Rain does exist in the state of fall." Alright, so what about 雨が降ってくる? Take a second to see if you
can figure out what's going on here again feel free to pause if you need to. Ok, so this would be "Rain fall come" Rain, 雨 is the subject marked が, and
it does the main action is 降る fall. So rain falls, and it also comes. In English, we might say something
similar like "The rain has come" DON'T treat this English literally. I'm just pointing out that we
can also use "come" in this way. Conversely let’s now consider, 雨が降っていく If you instinctively guessed "Rain fall go" as in the rain is falling and going
somewhere else-- ehh half correct. Remember, I mentioned that we're
looking at more metaphorical uses. The answer is that the rain is
"going", but it's not "going" anywhere. How can we go… without going somewhere? Well, "going forward", I'll
be explaining this point. Hey look, I didn't go anywhere physically. But we went forward in time together. In other words, rain is falling now, and it
will continue to fall as we go forward in time. We may say something similar in
English like "The rain keeps going" Again, DON'T treat this English literally- the point is that we can use "go"
in this way in English as well. Next, let’s take a look at ては and ても. But first, we’re gonna need to understand
the は and も topic marking particles. I will make a video in the future covering
every single particle in detail and that’ll be linked up here when it comes out,
but for now, Imma give a quick summary. Both the は and も particles
are “topic marking particles”, the difference is that は is
exclusive and も inclusive. For example, パンは食べた
As for bread, ate. Because I specified bread as the exclusive topic, it implies that bread is the only
thing I ate- and nothing else. While, パンは食べなかった
As for bread, was not ate Implies that bread is the thing I didn’t
eat, and I could’ve eaten something else. On the other hand, パンも食べた
As for bread, ate too. In this case, bread is the INCLUSIVE topic, it implies bread
is INCLUDED among other things that I ate. While パンも食べなかった
As for bread, was not eat too. Implies that I didn’t eat
anything, not even bread. Ok, not that hard by itself, but put it
behind the て form and all of a sudden, it’s a brand new grammar point! But let me ask you this, what
do you think is gonna happen? Is it going to: A. Completely change function
into something unrecognizable B. Completely lose all function
and become a meaningless sound C. Completely remain unchanged and
do exactly what we expect it to do Well, textbooks and grammar guides are gonna
tell you it's either A or B but the reality is… you already know it... it’s C. Let's start with this base sentence: 雨が降って、公園に行けない。
Rain does fall, is not able to go to park. But what happens when we do 雨が降っては、公園に行けない。 Well, since は is the exclusive topic marker-
“rain does fall” becomes the exclusive topic. As for “rain does fall”,
is not able to go to park. Meaning that the reason we couldn’t go
to park is JUST because of the darn rain. On the other hand, 雨が降っても、公園に行く。
Even though rain does fall, go to the park. The inclusive topic marker も makes
“rain does fall” included among other things that influence the result “go to park”. By the way, we can even do this
for non-verb ending sentences too. For example, サルでもわかる which often gets
translated to “Even monkeys understand” What this actually is, is サルだ “is a monkey”
+ the も particle + the verb わかる “makes sense” By adding the も particle, we are saying that, even
for Monkeys among other things… it makes sense. And you might also realize
now… This right here, でも, looks very similar to でも meaning “but”...
that’s because that’s where it comes from. Now that's a pretty big bombshell,
but I'm just getting started. Here is my artillery. About 60% of all Japanese "grammar points" follow
the same pattern and technically don't exist- They are essentially just simple concepts
bundled together and presented as new. てある、ておく、てみる、てから、てもいい This list can quite literally go on INFINITELY. BUT! You don’t need to learn
any of these separately, as long as you understand the て form + whatever
particle or whatever word they’re using. I’m not saying that if you understand
the て form you should NEVER look up ている and that if you do, senpai will be ashamed of you
because you did not TRULY understand the て form. I’m just saying, you wouldn’t HAVE to do this because it’d be possible for
you to figure it out yourself, and if you did look it up, you would understand much deeper than
anybody else WHY it does what it does. Case in point, something like ～ていては It’s made up of the て form, + いる,
+て form again, then the particle は If you understand these core elements, you do
NOT need to learn this as a separate point. "But Cheif, you just turned 1 point
into 3 elements- how is this simpler?" Sure, if you isolate this one case,
1 to 3 might sound like a deficit, but what about 10 bloated points to 3 core
principles? or 20? or 50? or even 100? See this approach helps you understand
infinite amount of combinations from a finite set of principles. One thing I want to clarify
is that I’m not saying that- just because you can break something
down- you must, and you should. Some things can be understood immediately Some things you get no extra
value out of breaking down Some things worked naturally
300 years ago, but not anymore And some things are hotly debated by
linguists who struggle to explain it as well But can YOU tell whether something can be broken
down- or should be broken down in the first place? Well in the description, I will provide a
link to a FREE document listing out every single common grammar point
and what it breaks down to. Patrons and YouTube members at the
幹部 (kanbu) tier or above will also get access to direct links to
learn each of these elements. But wait, there’s more. You can unlock access to
the worksheet for this video where I also explain a very difficult
point in when to use ないで vs なくて. So to unlock all of this AND every worksheet
that I’ve ever made, consider supporting me on Patreon using the link in the top right,
or by pressing the JOIN button below. Moving on from these grammar patterns, I
wanna talk about the similarities between the て form and the い-stem that I covered
in the previous video on verb stems. Simply put, the い-stem is just て form+. We can explore their similarities
and differences using 4 points: 1. The て form can take normal words, but it can't take standalone
helper verbs and helper adjectives. For example, we can say 振って回す、振る meaning
to shake, and 回す meaning to spin something. 回す is just a normal verb. So this is just to shake and spin
something around- as 2 separate verbs. But if we wanted to attach たい,
we have to say 振りたい because たい is a dedicated helper adjective
that only attaches to the い-stem. 2. When the い-stem connects, it
can create a single compound word So, while 振って回す is two verbs, 振り回す is
considered one single compound verb. When you do this, it can come with
extended metaphorical meanings. So alongside simply waving
and spinning something around, it can also mean to flex on people- as if
waving and swinging around your skills. 3. A verb in its い-stem can turn it into a noun. For example, 明日は休みだ
As for tomorrow, is a rest. 休み, the い-stem of the verb 休む meaning to rest. As
you can see, this sentence ends on noun+copula. We can't do is 明日は休んでだ -- this is just incorrect. 4. Both the て form and the い stem
can connect multiple clauses. If we bring back our first
example sentence, スーパーに行って、パンを買った。 We can actually replace the て form with the
い-stem and it will still work, スーパーに行き、パンを買った。 Meaning-wise, these are virtually identical.
Only, the て form is more common here. Next, you may have encountered certain
sentences that end on a て like 待って meaning wait. This is essentially a request for a certain
action, in this case, requesting someone to wait. What’s actually going on is that the
“request” part of it is being contracted. Some will say that ください is being skipped, as in
待ってください, but this is not the only possibility. 待ってくれ is also possible, and so is 待ってなさい. Ultimately, it doesn’t really
matter which it is because we can’t read people’s minds- or at least I can’t. The important part is that for verbs, it’s
typically a request that’s being contracted. But what about for A is B sentences? Well if I had 10 cats and someone
asked me why I have so many cats, I could say まー、猫が好きなんで…
Whic means, “Well, cats are likable so…” The “So what” is not mentioned
because I didn’t feel like I had to- from the question I received, it should be obvious
to both parties what I did or what I felt after. By the way, if you’re curious
as to what this んで is, this is another bloated point that I broke
down in this video in the top right. We’re not done with verbs yet as there’s
one final factor you must know... 他動詞 and 自動詞 is what you must understand to tell the difference between verbs
like 始める and 始まる, start and… start…? So click here to watch the
next video about 他動詞 and 自動詞.