掲示板 Forums - Questions about ている

I just think of it like the "-ing" suffix, like in English. That's pretty straightforward. A lot of the jargon that you're on about kind of does seem to overcomplicate it, which could lead you to lose the confidence of understanding, but all I know, just by reading the sentence, that's what it says. It can imply anything, but the sentence itself is just the "verb + ing" that's going on in the statement.

「 食べました、 食べていました」you've practically correctly translated what that says. "I ate", "I was eating". Those statements don't say anything exceptional in themselves. The difference is that is what it says. One's past tense, and it had already happened. The other is also past tense, but saying there is/was an ongoing activity/change. That's really all there is to that. It's not as deep as you think. Just translate that to English, and that's the meaning. This is not any special nuance. It's practically like English and other languages.

The only real tip i'd give of Japanese is that there are certain things that you have to think in the Japanese way, but the meaning behind this kind of thing isn't strictly one of them. Only the structure of the sentence. It's just basic.

I would also add a scenario, if you wanted to see how it plays in terms of context:

Let's say I have the TV on to some favorite show to watch, then someone comes in to the room and messes with the TV (turned it off, changed the channel, etc.).

My possible reaction to that situation:

「おい! それを観ていた！」

So, it's clear that whatever I reacted to, I was showing that I had been involved in an activity that I was doing at the time, as opposed to something I had done (見た). I was in the middle of enjoying whatever was on up to that point.

That's just what that jargon is talking about with stuff like that. They're just explaining in the technical terms about what these tenses can do. In the simplest terms in this case, ている is just that: verb"-ing" whatever was going on. Anything that adds to that, just adds information with that, whether that was happening in the past, is ongoing, and so on.

I've answered this one a bunch of times.

ている can take on three main meanings:

• Progressive: indicating the action is ongoing.
• Resultative: indicating the result of an action.
• Habitual: indicating the action happens habitually. (We will ignore this one as it overlaps with the plain verb)

Which meaning is meant depends on:

• The sense (meaning) of the verb.
• The context.

Some verbs, by their sense, almost always take on the resultative meaning and would require very specific contexts to take on the progressive. Most verbs can take on either progressive or resultative depending on context. If there is no context, then there is ambiguity and that's it, people will just default to what makes sense.

There are many heuristics (but *not* rules) for how the sense of the verb determines which interpretation it might take, like whether the verb is punctual, stative, etc. I wouldn't worry too much about that until you've learned a lot of verbs in context and see for yourself what is most often used. As they're not rules, the only thing that's surefire is what makes sense in context. Plus, as you've done yourself, it's very easy to take a different interpretation of the word's meaning that classifies it differently.

Counter example to what you found: 踊る is intransitive, 踊っている is usually progressive.
Not all verbs come in transitivity pairs, though the ones that do, yes, do often have some nice predictable behaviour.

I'm not advanced enough to contribute much to this, but I can share my way of looking at situations like 来ている, 閉まっている or 結婚している. Of course, it's not "mine" - mine. Just meant to say, of the many explanations grammar tries to provide for the language as it is, this one clicked with me. I'm posting this partly in hopes that it will help, partly to verify my understanding of it.

Common point of the above verbs: they can't be continuous in the sense represented by their basic English translation. In fact, the trap is in the translation. It can take time for something to become shut, or for someone to go through the process of arriving, or marrying someone. But the fact of the closing, arriving, or marrying is instantaneous, it's something with zero duration.

Let's say I grab the door handle and slooooowly push a door closed. While I'm pushing it, the door is not closed. That's why 閉まっている isn't really "it's being closed", but rather "someone closed it and it is now closed" - the very definition of the English present perfect.

Let's say I begin my wedding day by putting on fancy clothes, then I walk down the aisle or whatever, then I say "I do" to someone in the presence of a marriage officiant, then I spend the rest of the day at my wedding party. I have not "been getting married" the whole day. There were a series of processes that are part of the ceremony, but the actual "getting" or "becoming" married happened in the split-second the officiant was finished saying "I now pronounce you" and so on. That's why 結婚している isn't really "don't interrupt me, I'm getting married right now!" (although, who knows, I guess it could be?), but rather "I went through the process of getting married and am still married."

Same for 来る: we tend to think of coming to a place as a process and translate it as "to come", but it can also be"to arrive". While my friends take the train and then walk to my place from the station, they are not "in the process of arriving". They only arrive in the second they step over the threshold. From then on, their state of arrival continues (again, English present perfect) until they leave.

Does that even make sense? It does to me. I just hope it makes correct sense, too.

The problem with the above from むじな is that we use these verbs in the progressive in English:
We can be shutting the door, be coming somewhere, be marrying someone.

It's less that there's something inherent to these actions, and more just how the language evolved these verbs as being interpreted as such (their lexical aspect or Aktionsart) and how they interact with the grammar. These things differ between languages.

Therefore, you memorize.

Thank you, @compmyon, for putting that into a much clearer, more concise form. Aktionsart is exactly what I was thinking of. Some languages see something as a progression, others see it as an instantaneous change of state. (And then someone thought of semelfactives, because we weren't having a hard enough time already. Good to see Japanese doesn't seem to care about those.)

As mentioned by Shamugan, the ones that tend to default to resultative end up having different ways of phrasing for what you would use the progressive for in English. Auxiliaries like かける are common, e.g. 死にかける but not 死んでいる. Since Japanese interprets 死ぬ as punctual, it can't be something you're in the middle of, but something about to happen.

Sometimes you get a different verb, like 向かっている instead as mentioned earlier.

"I feel like a lot of this is boiling down to just needing to "think Japanese" and that will come with time?"

Yes and no.
It's about that:
"it's all about internalizing that Japanese verbs can"

And your "internalization" may not become exactly a japanese one. Later, if you talk about grammar with natives or read a grammar textbook for japanese middle schooler, you will be probably surprised by how they think about their language as a whole.

But that doesn't matter. As long you immerse yourself a lot, you will build an internal system to understand japanese (or more like an internal database of sentences at the beginning).

That part from Compmyon about specific context is also important:
"And not the verb as a whole, but the verb in a specific sense being used in a specific context."

Even just one example, one sentence in a specific context can help you more than spending hours or days studying grammar. Like for me:

• 言ってない
• and 死んでいる

Are probably the two sentences that help the most to understand the ている form. Because I watch youtube a lot for my immersion and I probably heard those two more than a 1000 times each (after a few years). In a lot of different contexts.
And often in similar context too. But sometimes there was a variation like "あ、死んだ". Which made me often question why but with a thousand examples, you will learn why even if you don't try. I even just remember a few clip with specific context while writing that:

• 死んでいる: He is dead (Context: Some streamers are talking about where is one other streamer and one person answer that)
• 死んだ: He is dead (Context: A streamer found a body of another streamer)

Both are from a game called Lethal company.

In the first case, it's the... Resultative, if I'm correct? But basically, you're talking about the result, not the past. Same if some players ask "◯◯さん, 生きてる？", you would answer "いや、死んでいる" in a lot of case. Because you're not talking about the fact that another player died in the past, you talking about the present result. 死んだ is also possible but less likely. I think even in english, you would answer "No, he is dead" rather than "He died" in a few similar situation. Insisting on the result rather than the past... well, to be accurate it's a state but still, it's not the past at least. But maybe, I'm wrong, don't quote me on that.

For the second example, like I said, a streamer found a body of another streamer and just said "あ、死んだ" while laughthing. Because it happened in the past and it's over. But funny thing (or not when you're trying to understand that), just after, that streamer met another streamer in the game and said "〇〇さん、死んでいる" while laugthing. Because this time, he was talking about the result. That kind of switch can be really annoying when they appear so close but that also what make you understand that kind of nuance. It force you to pay attention to the details (Just before, he was alone and after he was with other people here)

Anyway, it's just my case with game and youtube as well as my specific example that allowed me to breakthrough. Simply by watching, I accumulated a lot of those "internal" examples. And I remember a few of them with a lot of details/context which in turn allow me to reanalyze those patterns. And most importantly, it's all those details from the context that guide me to a more correct interpretation most of the time. Not grammar. Grammar is more abstract layer to polish/refined that understanding. Trying to understand grammar perfectly right now is like trying to learn algebra before knowing your multication tables.

TLDR: Go watch/read about your favorite content until you find your specific examples that make sense for you and start (re)building you way up to more abstract pattern. You only need a few of them for each case. After that, it's just a matter of continuing to immerse yourself and restudying grammar from time to time.

PS: If you don't like game, any repetive content will work btw (Vlog, cooking channel, etc). Even specific content. It doesn't matter because ている, resultative case, etc will always appear everywhere anyway. But the repetitive part is important. Because it will expose you to similar situation except for a few little details (which are the key to understand or notice the differences).