We haven’t learned this in class yet. I read online that its basically just English “ing”. But after reading it some more, turns out, as usual, theres some more to it.

Sources:

LingoDeer

r/LearnJapanese

Maggie Sensei

V + て + いる

Structure: You take the gerund of a verbal (て-form), and add いる, or (います for more formal) to it. The ending いる can be treated like a normal verbal. Note that this いる is just a gramatical thing and not the verb 居る (いる) - “(animate) to exist”.

Use: Similar to English present progressive form (“ing”), but also shows progressive states of being. That can be a little hard to directly apply to stuff, so I’ll show some example uses. A lot of them you can construct English uses of “ing” to fit, but it may not be as natural or common.

1 - English present progressive. Something currently happening.

家の前に立っている人は誰ですか - “Who is the person standing in front of my house”

今、日本語を勉強しています - “I am studying Japanese now”

2 - Something that currently frequently happens. Such as something habitual, or something that continously happens.

３年間、日本語を勉強している - “I have been studying Japanese for 3 years”

よくがんばっているけど... - “I’ve been giving it my all, but…”

普段、自転車で会社に通っている - “Usually, I commute to the office by bike” / “I am commuting to work by bike usually”

毎日、アニメを見ているよ - “I watch anime everyday” / “I’ve been watching anime everyday”

どんな仕事をしていますか - “What do you do for work” / “What kind of work are you doing (now)”

今日はまだシャワーに入っていない - “I haven’t showered yet today”

3 - While you can often contruct an English translation to use “ing”, it’s to important not just to think of it as English “ing”. Instead it’s more of like “an action is currently taking place that is linked to a past an action that was started and is still being continued”. But, you have to watch out for resultant state verbs, in which some action happened and completed in the past, links to some current state that started with that action and is still continuing. These aren’t natural to convert to English “ing”.

僕は太っている - “I am fat”. Not “I am fatting”. The verb is “to become fat”. So that action happened in the past, and left me in the state of being fat currently.

あなたは結婚していますか - “Are you married?”. Not “Are you marrying?”.

明日は帽子を着ていない - “Tomorrow I am not wearing a hat”. This one translates pretty well.

彼女は死んでいる - “She is dead”. Not “She is dying”. I guess to explain this one, after “to die” happens, you are suppose to be in the dead state. And we use the English usage in the sense that the person is approaching death, but not yet dead. Japanese follows the progressive resultant state like above.

For stuff like that last one, I find it pretty hard to wrap my head around. Since like even words like 行く have the resultant “went” state? A little confused about when to use this form and just the regular simple present sense. I think it just adds specificity about timelines, in that this action started in the past, and linked to an action happening now, or a resulting state now. Where as just simple present leaves a lot unanswered.

Hmm… well in a lot of the cases its very similar to English present progressive, guess I just roll with that for now. Just some cases that don’t fit it well like 死ぬ or 知る. Maybe think about what resultant state means more? Still don’t see how all verbs don’t have a resultant state.

Oh wait. Just found out you can do it with 行く.

田中さんはアメリカへ行っています - Can mean “Tanaka san is going to America”, as in, hes in the process of “going” currently. Or “Tanaka san has gone to America before”, as he is the state of “gone to America”. I guess we just have to infer from context then?

So, to wrap up the resultant state up, its basically used for verbs that have “instantaneous change of states or transfer”. I think I need more speaking exp and to read more to fully understand the contexts to use the resultant state progressive.

Adjectives

Structure:

i-Adjective - A (drop i) + く + している

na-Adjective (na-Nominal) - N + に + している

Use: To remain A, or to keep in A condition.

いつも部屋の中をきれいにしているね - “I always keep my room clean”

毎日、忙しくしています - I keep myself busy.

Other notes

In spoken speech only (not gramatically correct in writing), you often hear people drop the い.

死んでる - “is dead”

アニメを見てる - “watching anime”




Vocab:

Here are some kanji from the lessons that I wasn’t really familiar with at this point:

普段 - We know none of this kanji. Most of the radicals tho. Means “usually”. Pronounced “fudan”

通う - We know all this kanji, which has the meaning of “pass through”. This word means “to go to and from (between)”, used for saying “to commute”.

結婚 - Means marriage. Pronounced kekkon.