Japanese Grammar In Its Natural Habitat
Wild Nihongo!
ていく

ていく

ていく Japanese Grammar Lesson

Grammar Type: Auxiliary Verb (Group 1)

Essential Meaning: Continue ~ing / Keep on ~ing / Continue getting ~er (i.e. some action continues or some state continues to change)

Construction: 

  • Verb て-Form + 行いく
    • E.g. 読よんで行いく [Continue on reading]
    • E.g. 寒さむくなって行いく [Continue getting colder]

Notes:

  • ていく (て行いく in kanji) represents some action that continues on from a particular point in time or a state that continues changing from a particular point in time. It is analogous to “Continue ~ing” or “Keep on ~ing” in English.
  • て行いく can represent an action or state that continues from the present, or it can represent an action or state that continues from a specified point in the past. .
    • E.g Continuation from the present: これから寒さむくなって行いく。[From now on, it will continue to get colder.]
    • E.g. Continuation from a point in the past: そのころから日本にほんの経済けいざいは強つよくなって行いった。 [From that point on, Japan’s economy continued to get stronger.]
  • Sometimes て行いく and Verb て-Form + 行いく look identical, but they can be differentiated through context.
    • E.g. 毎日まいにち会社かいしゃにバスに乗のって行いく。[Ever day, I ride the bus to work.] Here, 乗のって行いく represents two distinct actions (i.e. boarding and then going) rather than one continuing action of boarding. It would be nonsensical to say that one “continues on boarding the bus”. Therefore, this is an example of the て-Form + 行いく.
    • E.g. あのレストランでコーヒーを飲のんで行いきましょう。[Let’s get a coffee at that restaurant and then go.] This sentence is an example of て-form + 行いく for the same reason as above. The speaker is saying “Let’s drink, and then let’s go” rather than “Let’s continue on drinking“.
  • When て行いく describes a changing state, it can be replaced by て来くる. The difference is that て行いく is more objective and impersonal. while て来くる involves the speaker personally.
    • E.g. これから暖あたたかくなって行いきますよ。[It will become warmer from now on.] This sentence comes across as an objective statement about the changing weather.
    • E.g. そのころから日本にほんの経済けいざいは強つよくなって来きた。[From that time, Japan’s economy began to grow stronger.] Due to the presence of て来くる, this sentence implies that the speaker has some personal connection with the growing Japanese economy.

Example Sentences:

これからは寒さむくなって行いく。[From now on, it will keep on getting colder.]

これからは毎日まいにち本ほんを一冊いっさつ読よんで行いくつもりです。[From now on, I intend to continue reading a book per day.]

これから暖あたたかくなって行いきますよ。[From now on, it will continue getting warmer.]

そのころから日本にほんの経済けいざいは強つよくなって行いった。[From that time, Japan’s economy continued to strengthen.]

分わからないことをノートに書かいて行いった。[I continued writing the things I didn’t understand in my notebook.]

WILD Examples:

Listen to this line at 2:40: 僕ぼくが見きてきたすべてを話はなして聞きかせたい [I want to tell tell you about all the things that I kept on seeing]
At 1:43, listen for this line: 汚よごれて行いくサンゴも減へって行いく魚さかなも、どうしたらいいのか分わからない [Both the coral that continues to get dirty and the fish populations that continue to decline…I’m not sure what we should do about it] Note that いく is sometimes pronounces as ゆく, but the meaning remains the same.

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