Start Learning Japanese in the next 30 Seconds with
a Free Lifetime Account

Or sign up using Facebook

Genki I ( first Edition) related question

Moderators: Moderator Team, Admin Team

mhoffman_518224
New in Town
Posts: 1
Joined: September 28th, 2017 11:36 am

Genki I ( first Edition) related question

Postby mhoffman_518224 » September 28th, 2017 12:02 pm

Japanese POD 101 Team: Sorry I do not have access to Japanese characters such as Hiragana, Katakana, Kanji with this computer. I hoped that through your Forum, you could help with a question. I am studying Nihongo on my own now, but have attended classes at both the Japan America Society and at college. I travel for a living these days, and so I am working on my own!
I ran into a question! Mainichi Nihongo o benkko shimasu. Nihongo o benkyo suro no daisukina desu! My question is: In the second portion of dialogue in chapter 9 of my Genki 1(first edition) textbook, the second sentence says: " Dete Iru hito wa minna otoko no h"ito desu yo"

It appears that "Dete" in this sentence is the "te" form of "Deru"( to appear; to attend) and "iru" is "( a person) is in...stays at" The translation of this sentence is : " The people who appear are all men."

My question is focused on "Dete iru" in the beginning of the sentence. I think I understand why the "te" form of "deru" is being used to link this verb to the rest of the sentence, but I don't understand the need for the verb "iru." Can you break down the sentence, please. Let me know in particular about "dete iru" in the beginning of the sentence and the placement and meaning of these words. Thank you so much!

Mark Hoffman

mmmason8967
Expert on Something
Posts: 758
Joined: January 7th, 2012 12:24 pm

Re: Genki I ( first Edition) related question

Postby mmmason8967 » October 8th, 2017 9:25 am

The ~te iru construction covers two closely related situations. One situation describes something that is happening right now and the other describes the current state of something. Examples of the progressive tense, which describes something that is happening now:-

食べている。
tabete iru.
He is eating.

本を読んでいる。
Hon wo yonde iru.
She is reading a book.

Examples of describing a current state:-

広島に住んでいる。
Hiroshima ni sunde iru.
He lives in Hiroshima.

私は結婚している。
Watashi wa kekkon shite iru.
I am married.

知っている。
Shitte iru.
I know.

When ~te iru is used for the current state, it can be mistaken for the progressive tense. For example, 太る (futoru) means 'to put on weight' but 私は太っている (watashi wa futotte iru) does not mean 'I am putting on weight', it means 'I have put on weight' or 'I am fat'.

マイケル

Get 40% OFF
thegooseking
Expert on Something
Posts: 216
Joined: October 17th, 2008 8:24 pm

Re: Genki I ( first Edition) related question

Postby thegooseking » October 12th, 2017 11:56 am

Mark Hoffmanさん、

In English, the construction "to be [verb]ing" describes one of four states (or 'aspects' to use the proper grammatical term):-
  • The inceptive state leading up to the action (e.g. "to be dying").
  • The progressive state of currently doing the action (e.g. "to be reading").
  • The resultative state resulting from the action (e.g. "to be standing").
  • The iterative state of repeatedly doing the action (e.g. "to be knocking").
Japanese -te iru is actually very similar, but with the important differences that it never expresses the inceptive state, and expresses the resultative state with a lot more verbs than English does (e.g. shinde iru means "to have died", not "to be dying").

In this case, we're looking at the iterative state. One thing to know (or notice, since it happens in English, too) about the iterative state is that it's used when a person performs the same action multiple times, but also often used when multiple people perform the same action (e.g. Hitobito wa sensō no sei de takusan shinde iru - "Many people are dying because of the war" - Note in this case we're not translating shinde iru as "has died", but "are dying", because we're talking about multiple subjects. We interpret shinde iru iteratively, not resultatively, and "are dying" iteratively, not inceptively). So in the Genki example:-
Dete iru hito wa minna otoko no hito desu yo
The people who appear (are appearing) are all men

Multiple people are appearing (after all, it wouldn't make sense to use minna if hito only referred to one person), so we're using -te iru to say that the action of appearing is happening many times with different subjects.

小狼

Return to “Learn All About Japanese”