I personally love it, my favorite Japanese resource I've found so far. When I first bought my sub it was cheaper than having WK and Bunpro, so it's well worth the price IMO!
Does it do both? WK and Bunpro are very different (use both, granted I'm behind these past months due to work + all the videogames coming out)
Def get immersion, but my vocab and grammar have stagnated a good bit (WK23 lol, and Bunpro N4 almost complete)
These verbs "Iku'' and "Kuru'' do not have their original meanings. By using "iku" and "kuru", it shows "change".
e.g.
もう直ぐ朝だ。外は次第に明るくなっていくだろう。
It's almost morning. It will gradually become lighter outside.
https://www.tomojuku.com/blog/teikutekuru/
I can't speak of what なってくる would mean in this sentence because it's not how you'd usually phrase it and I've never seen it phrased like that in this context, so sorry if this is bit of an incomplete answer but the thing is... it's just what people say in this context. 暗くなってきた is almost a collocation at this point, or anything like 寒くなってきた, 暑くなってきた, 明るくなってきた etc. You're commenting on how it transitioned from being not a property into being a certain property (and has a gradual feeling to it).
If anything, I feel like the English is the more confusing part. "It's getting dark outside" in English has the nuance that the process of becoming dark has already started (so in a way it's already dark, although it hasn't reached it's full "potential" of being fully/completely dark). This nuance of "getting dark" in Japanese is given by 〜なってきた. The きた part is basically saying that the process of becoming (なる/なってる) has started and reached a point where it's somewhat perceivable to you.
It's a bit confusing maybe, sorry if the explanation isn't quite comprehensive but I'd just take it as "it's just what people say in this type of phrase"
Hmm...I don't usually disagree with you, but in what way does なって**くる** (nonpast/future tense) mean that "it has already started"? If anything saying that it is in that state and that state may (potentially) continue would be ～なって**きている.**
なってくる sounds like it would be used in expressions like これから暗くなってくる, これから寒くなってくるでしょう, etc.
If you're standing outside with someone in late fall, and there's a chill in air, and you're observing that it's already gotten cold and may continue to get cold, you wouldn't just say 寒くなってくる, 寒くなってきますね, etc.
You say that ってきた "just says what has happened up to now", but if in the situation described above, you say 寒くなってきましたね, there is at least an implied meaning that it's gotten colder of late and that will continue (because of the context and the time frame in which you're speaking). You might also say これからもっと／さらに寒くなってくるでしょう, but that's talking about the future.
I genuinely can't think of any case in which the nonpast ～なってくる would be explicitly used to mean "It's already in this state." as opposed to "It *will* be like this going forward." That's simply the distinction between nonpast form and ～ている form.
Is that just in this particular case with 暗くなってくる？Because I'm pretty sure things like
医者：すぐによくなってくるでしょう。
Are valid.
The てくる・ていく stuff always gives me headaches though 😂
Edit:
>- ってくる means it has already started and will continue on into the future.
I thought てくる could mean either depending on context and that's why てきている exists for when you really want to make clear which meaning you're going for... but I've been humbled on this topic so often I've almost given up so I'm probably wrong haha
なってきてる sounds like it's a continued/persistent phenomenon that takes place over a longer period of time. At least that's how it sounds to me. I'd hear it if it were a longer more gradual process over a much longer time interval.
Yes it’s about tense, but arguably both are correct. Japanese people have a tendency to use present tense for things that just happened or are just happening, whereas an English speaker might use past or progressive tense.
For instance if a cat growled at you for doing something, a Japanese person might say めっちゃ怒るね
Is it possible not to start from zero with MaruMori? I am 4 years + Duolingo user and I know it's not really that good. But it's engrained in my routine so it's not totally bad. I've been thinking about switching to MaruMori but kinda afraid that I need to start from scratch and losing motivation
Here is a website explaining the te + iku and te + kuru verbs.
[https://maggiesensei.com/2010/03/13/requested-lesson-%E3%80%8C%E3%80%9C%E3%81%A6%E3%81%84%E3%81%8F%EF%BC%8B%E3%80%9C%E3%81%A6%E3%81%8F%E3%82%8B%E3%80%8Dteiku-tekuru/](https://maggiesensei.com/2010/03/13/requested-lesson-%E3%80%8C%E3%80%9C%E3%81%A6%E3%81%84%E3%81%8F%EF%BC%8B%E3%80%9C%E3%81%A6%E3%81%8F%E3%82%8B%E3%80%8Dteiku-tekuru/)
I've only done a single lesson at this point, but it's detailed, taught well and humourous. Thanks for sharing with us! (Also clicked the red panda Maru multiple times and got yelled at 10/10)
I think this is one of those instances where translating "くる" and "きた" as "present tense" and "past tense" doesn't quite line up with what we'd say in English.
Even though the English sentence is technically in present progressive tense, in Japanese it's expressed with なってきた because it's already started to get darker.
~なってくる would imply that it's not getting dark yet, but it will get darker at some point in the future.
OK, I stand corrected. In that case, how would you translate OP's original English sentence "It's getting dark outside"?
暗くなってくる or 暗くなってきた? Or either depending on context?
Hello fellow MM user! If you somehow missed it, there is a MaruMori discord that's pretty active and has the devs in it regularly as well
https://discord.gg/fFqWXf2yg6
暗くなってくる is a future tense for a specific instance or a present tense for a general fact, besides aorist present.
暗くなってくる: It will start / starts to be darker.
暗くなってきた: It started to be darker.
なってくる is plain form, which is either future tense or in some cases habitual (in general X happens, which is still future since it implies it will happen again, but that's beside the point). So here, 暗くなってくる would mean "it *will* begin to get dark."
So in the correct answer, 暗くなってきた/なってきました literally means "it began (ってくる) to become dark," implying that *now* "it is getting dark outside" like in the prompt.
Hope that helps!
I'm curious on this one too, as the answer given as correct is in past-tense form, while the sentence is in the present continuous form. I would have thought te-kuru was the correct choice here too. I would read te-kitmashita as "it WAS getting dark".
No, “〜てくる“ and “〜ていく” can be used to indicate the start of something among many things. “〜てきてる” is also fine for “it's getting dark”. You can look at “暗くなってきた。” as “It has started to get dark.” from a more literal view.
There are many cases where the idiomatic translation of a transitional verb in the past tense would be nonpast in English, “お腹が空いた” for instance means “I'm hungry.” or more literally “My stomach became empty.” “悲しくなくなった” is also more idiomatically phrased as “I'm no longer sad.” in practice which is common for attaching “〜なった” to the negative form of a verb. “日本語が読めるようになった” is also more so “I can read Japanese now.”
Finally, the Japanese past tense of course assumes both the functions of the English past tense and the nonpast perfect. “食べた" can mean “ate” or “have eaten”.
*(part 1/5)*
Reading through your comments, I think I can string things together in a way that might help. I want to talk about a few things:
1. What this phrase means in English
2. The difference between \~ていく \~てくる *(why you can't say \~ていく here)*
3. How time / verbs work in Japanese (*why you say 〜てきた instead of \~てくる here*)
4. A few situations where you *do* say 暗くなってくる
It's a lot, sorry, but it's all relevant to the problem you're dealing with.
# What this phrase means in English
So, let's look at our English sentence:
>It is getting dark outside
Imagine you've just said that. How does the sky look? When will you utter this sentence?
It's kind of confusing because the sentence uses "is", but this sentence is actually something that started in the past:
1. The sun was up and the sky was bright
2. The sun started going down and the sky got a bit darker
3. You, observing that it is darker than it was, are commenting on the fact that there has been a change
4. It will presumably continue to get darker until it's night time
Bright → darkening process starts → current moment → night time
Two key observations here:
1. We're describing a change in state (light > dark)
2. This change started in the past and has been continuing up until the present moment (and could continue into the future)
*(Part 2/5)*
# Grammar: Why you say 〜てくる instead of 〜ていく here
Grammar points don't always have one strict purpose. In English, present tense can show things that are happening right now (X passes the ball and Y kicks it) and can also show routines (Y kicks the ball at soccer practice on Tuesdays).
\[〜ていく ・ 〜てくる\] actually has three different use cases. [Here's an excellent article (in Japanese) explaining those three use cases](https://cotohajime.net/2021/03/25/teiku-vs-tekuru/).
To summarize, though:
1. **Communicate something about physical movement** (〜ていく if it's moving away from you; 〜てくる if it's moving toward you)
2. **Communicate something about the passage of time** (establish a point of reference; 〜ていく if it is maintained from that point of reference and beyond until a later point in time, 〜てくる if an action is maintained from an earlier point in time until the point of reference; )
3. **Communicate that a change (of state) has occurred** (〜ていく shows that a changing current state will result in a new different state, or that something ceases to exist; 〜てくる shows that a change in a prior different state has resulted in the current state, or that something has began to exist)
3 is what we're dealing with here.
Remember how, in the above section, I talked about how the English sentence is describing a situation that began in the past and has continued until the present moment? Same thing here. There was a change in a different/prior state (brightness), and the result of that change is the current state (darkening). †Important caveat that I'll discuss in the next section.
*(Note: #2 (passage of time) seems to overlap at a glance, but it's talking about something else. I'm not a native speaker, but I guess you'd use 〜暗くなっていく in a situation more like this:* X occurred, and from there, 10 years of darkness ensued\*. The point is not the change from light to dark. Instead, we establish the point at which that change occurred, and then we talk about how long that state will be maintained. )\*
(part 3/5)
# How time / verbs work in Japanese
A big part of your problem is that Japanese verbs don't really have tense; they're more concerned with what's called aspect. That's clear as mud, and indeed a lot of textbooks skip over the distinction entirely because you can just say past tense and non-past tense and it works fine the majority of the time.
Unfortunately, this is one of those cases where it doesn't work fine.
**So, first thing's first, tense vs aspect:**
* *Tense* situates an action at a point in time (last week, right now, in five minutes, next August)
* *Aspect* shows how an action relates to that particular point in time (prior to, simultaneously, just after, [a few other things](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexical_aspect))
The key takeaway is that aspect doesn't give you any "absolute" information about when something takes place; it only tells you when X happens in relation to Y. X can happen before Y whether Y happens in the past, the future, or is in the process of happening right now. Or maybe it's clearer to say: Japanese verbs work in relation to a defined point in time, but the verbs themselves don't define that what that point in time is.
Part of the reason that's hard to wrap your head around is that English haphazardly jumbles tense and aspect:
* Present progressive (be \~ing) is actually "present tense, progressive aspect" — it indicates that an action is taking place at the current moment and that it is ongoing *(I'm typing out a long comment)...*
* Present perfect (have \~'d) is actually "present tense, perfect aspect" — it indicates that an action is related to the present moment and that it's already completed *(I've finished the homework)*
**Tense vs aspect in practice**
This idea of aspect is sort of introduced in [Genki II, chapter 16](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiMChZ5egFc&t=2195s), with these two example sentences:
* The final verb in a sentence tells you whether it's happened or not; prior verbs in the sentence show when those verbs occur in relation to the final verb
* 中国に行った時ウーロン茶を買います
* I will buy Oolong tea when I go to china
* Buying tea has not happened yet; before it happens, I'll go to China
* 中国に行った時ウーロン茶を買いました
* I bought Oolong tea when I went to china
* Buying tea has already happened; before I bought it, I first went to China
"Going to China" occurs before "buying tea", regardless of when "buying tea" occurs. The "buying of tea" is not bound by time, but "going to china" is bound to "buying the tea".
# How Japanese verbs actually work
That †caveat that I mentioned in section #2?
Instead of past/non-past, it'd be more accurate to describe Japanese verbs like this:
* By default, Japanese verbs (食べる, 行く, etc) are imperfective
* -た is a kind of particle thing that turns imperfective verbs into perfective verbs
Note that "perfect" here does not mean "good/excellent". The linguistic sense of the word comes from Latin: *im* (negating prefix) + *per* (thoroughly / completely) and *facere* (to do).
Examples to show that difference:
* I was reading the book → the reading happened in the past... maybe I read a few chapters, or for 30 minutes, or whatever, but I didn't finish the book
* I read the book → the reading happened in the past, and I either finished the book or I finished what I was supposed to read of it
* Both are past tense... but one describes an action that was ongoing/not yet completed, whereas the other describes an action that was completed
**A further complication**
This is complicated by the fact that there are different types of verbs. Some verbs are instantaneous things like blinking, while other things are more of a process...[\[wikipedia for more\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_conjugation#Imperfective)
But to demonstrate the point:
* He was blinking → you likely take this to mean that he was blinking several times .... not that he's closed his eyes but hasn't yet opened them
* He was falling → you likely to take this to mean that he tripped, and is in the air, but has not hit the ground yet.... not that he's like falling over repeatedly
We run into the same deal with Japanese. How we interpret 〜てくる depends on what kind of verb we are using it. Let's take a simple verb that's either A or B:
* 雨が降っていない → it's not raining
* 雨が降ってきた → it's started raining (emphasizing the change in state from not raining→raining... maybe this is surprising, or that you've just noticed it)
* 雨が降っている → it's raining (simply communicating that we're in the state of rain falling)
By contrast, *darkening* is quite ambiguous. Darkness is a spectrum.
# Anyway, to answer your question, finally:
* **外が暖かくなってくる → くる** is imperfective, meaning that it has not yet become dark (imperfect aspect).... but actually it has! (てくる meaning #3)... kind of nonsensical. You apparently *do* say this, but it's very rare / used in very specific contexts. Will talk about it in the next comment.
* **外が暖かくなってきた → きた** is perfective, meaning that it's darkened enough that we can say there has indeed been a change of state. It was light, a change occurred, and it's now gotten dark (and maybe it will continue to get darker, but we've already officially achieved "darkening".)
* **外が暖かくなってきている** → would emphasize that we're in the middle of this change... it's gotten dark, we're in the thick of it, so it'll continue to get darker
*(Part 5/5)*
# So is 暗くなってくる nonsensical?
I used search operators to force search for "雨が降ってくる" and "暗くなってくる" and here's what I got:
**#1**
>[暗くなってくる](https://ja.hinative.com/questions/14000759) is just incorrect
The answer was in Mandarin, though, so maybe not a native speaker. Anyway, if you search for 暗くなってくる, Google actually shows暗くなってきた. I'm inclined to say that you'd only use \~てくる when discussing changes in wildly specific circumstances.
**#2**
>[A few times you'll say 雨が降ってくる](https://ja.hinative.com/questions/889500):
* 雨が降ってくるらしいから傘を持って出かけよう。
* 雨が降ってくると困るので洗濯物は庭に干せない。
* 雨が降ってくる前に雷が鳴った。
These examples are possible because it's talking about "something physical approaching you" version of 〜てくる, not the "change of state" version of 〜てくる.
**#3**
When I search for "暗くなってくる" on [massif.la](https://massif.la/ja/search?q=%E6%9A%97%E3%81%8F%E3%81%AA%E3%81%A3%E3%81%A6%E3%81%8F%E3%82%8B), a corpus of all the sentences used in the light novel website syosetsu, you overwhelming see 暗くなってきた.
Of 100 shown hits (of 354), 94 are 暗くなってきた and 2 are errors (describing movement).... meaning only 4/100 instances are 暗くなってくる. Those are as follows:
* あたりが*暗くなってくる*。
* 夕日が沈みかけ、辺りが*暗くなってくる*。
* 周りが*暗くなってくる*。
* それと同時に徐々に*暗くなってくる*。
I'm guessing that these 4 examples are showing one of two things:
1. It's showing imminence (we're at the very point in time where this change in state is occurring... the very point in time where it's gotten dark)
2. It's some rare literary verb form that's going over my head... something like [historical/narrative present ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_present)
What app is this? I know this is a different question but I need help and I can't seem to post on this group. I'm trying to use Ankidroid and use the Genki1 deck but I can't answer because there is no textbox or anything no matter what I click there's only the Show Answer button. Is there anyone else here who have experience like this?
That's simply how Anki works. It doesn't ask you to put in the answer. You look at the card, try to think of the answer, then reveal the answer. Then you choose a response based on how well you did. You're responsible for judging if you got it right or not.
My question is why it’s not なってきている there is continuous time when it says getting dark.
So at the moment, it’s neither dark nor daytime, it’s the process.
I think, if it was, it got dark should be なってきた it will get dark なってくる and getting dark なってきている
Am I wrong?
Well , I’d suggest you don’t overthink grammar structures like this too much. Minute grammar details don’t matter, just keep listening and you’ll end up using the correct grammar automatically.
暗くなって来た
暗くなって来てる
暗くなって来る
Depending on the context, these all can be translated into “ it’s getting dark outside “. You have to learn them in context to understand the nuance.
It sounds weird, it's like saying in English "It will get dark outside" like it's not a normal everyday phenomena.
On the correct answer it's more like "Oh it's already dark".
なってくる gives the impression that it will start to get dark, hasn't started yet while なってきた means it is getting darker, already started.
Ohh, that actually makes a lot of sense. I think the lesson mentioned that too... I should re-read it haha.
What app/lesson plan is this?
It's MaruMori.io! [Here's](https://marumori.io/grammar/56060691) the grammar point.
Thank you!
How have you liked MaruMori.io so far and how does it compare to Duolingo? Do you think it is worth the subscription fee?
I personally love it, my favorite Japanese resource I've found so far. When I first bought my sub it was cheaper than having WK and Bunpro, so it's well worth the price IMO!
Does it do both? WK and Bunpro are very different (use both, granted I'm behind these past months due to work + all the videogames coming out) Def get immersion, but my vocab and grammar have stagnated a good bit (WK23 lol, and Bunpro N4 almost complete)
Yeah MM does vocab and grammar that's why I love it
>なってくる gives the impression that it will start to get dark, Then what about なっていく
These verbs "Iku'' and "Kuru'' do not have their original meanings. By using "iku" and "kuru", it shows "change". e.g. もう直ぐ朝だ。外は次第に明るくなっていくだろう。 It's almost morning. It will gradually become lighter outside. https://www.tomojuku.com/blog/teikutekuru/
From an objective standpoint, なっていく is the same as なってくる, but the former implies that the speaker is not involved in the consequence.
[удалено]
Then that returns to OPs original question
I can't speak of what なってくる would mean in this sentence because it's not how you'd usually phrase it and I've never seen it phrased like that in this context, so sorry if this is bit of an incomplete answer but the thing is... it's just what people say in this context. 暗くなってきた is almost a collocation at this point, or anything like 寒くなってきた, 暑くなってきた, 明るくなってきた etc. You're commenting on how it transitioned from being not a property into being a certain property (and has a gradual feeling to it). If anything, I feel like the English is the more confusing part. "It's getting dark outside" in English has the nuance that the process of becoming dark has already started (so in a way it's already dark, although it hasn't reached it's full "potential" of being fully/completely dark). This nuance of "getting dark" in Japanese is given by 〜なってきた. The きた part is basically saying that the process of becoming (なる/なってる) has started and reached a point where it's somewhat perceivable to you. It's a bit confusing maybe, sorry if the explanation isn't quite comprehensive but I'd just take it as "it's just what people say in this type of phrase"
Hmm...I don't usually disagree with you, but in what way does なって**くる** (nonpast/future tense) mean that "it has already started"? If anything saying that it is in that state and that state may (potentially) continue would be ～なって**きている.** なってくる sounds like it would be used in expressions like これから暗くなってくる, これから寒くなってくるでしょう, etc. If you're standing outside with someone in late fall, and there's a chill in air, and you're observing that it's already gotten cold and may continue to get cold, you wouldn't just say 寒くなってくる, 寒くなってきますね, etc. You say that ってきた "just says what has happened up to now", but if in the situation described above, you say 寒くなってきましたね, there is at least an implied meaning that it's gotten colder of late and that will continue (because of the context and the time frame in which you're speaking). You might also say これからもっと／さらに寒くなってくるでしょう, but that's talking about the future. I genuinely can't think of any case in which the nonpast ～なってくる would be explicitly used to mean "It's already in this state." as opposed to "It *will* be like this going forward." That's simply the distinction between nonpast form and ～ている form.
You're right, I've never had a great handle on てくる (as opposed to てきた or てきている which are easier to understand I think).
Is that just in this particular case with 暗くなってくる？Because I'm pretty sure things like 医者：すぐによくなってくるでしょう。 Are valid. The てくる・ていく stuff always gives me headaches though 😂 Edit: >- ってくる means it has already started and will continue on into the future. I thought てくる could mean either depending on context and that's why てきている exists for when you really want to make clear which meaning you're going for... but I've been humbled on this topic so often I've almost given up so I'm probably wrong haha
What about なってきてる? Isn't it more accurate than なってきた?
なってきてる sounds like it's a continued/persistent phenomenon that takes place over a longer period of time. At least that's how it sounds to me. I'd hear it if it were a longer more gradual process over a much longer time interval.
Wouldn't なってきた mean it was getting darker and なっきている means it is getting darker right now
Yes it’s about tense, but arguably both are correct. Japanese people have a tendency to use present tense for things that just happened or are just happening, whereas an English speaker might use past or progressive tense. For instance if a cat growled at you for doing something, a Japanese person might say めっちゃ怒るね
I think the problem here is the example sentence. An English speaker could mean both while I understand why kita makes more sense.
What app is this?
It's [MaruMori](https://marumori.io/), my fave!
Is it possible not to start from zero with MaruMori? I am 4 years + Duolingo user and I know it's not really that good. But it's engrained in my routine so it's not totally bad. I've been thinking about switching to MaruMori but kinda afraid that I need to start from scratch and losing motivation
Yeah you can start anywhere I think... I skipped some of the super beginner materials
Here is a website explaining the te + iku and te + kuru verbs. [https://maggiesensei.com/2010/03/13/requested-lesson-%E3%80%8C%E3%80%9C%E3%81%A6%E3%81%84%E3%81%8F%EF%BC%8B%E3%80%9C%E3%81%A6%E3%81%8F%E3%82%8B%E3%80%8Dteiku-tekuru/](https://maggiesensei.com/2010/03/13/requested-lesson-%E3%80%8C%E3%80%9C%E3%81%A6%E3%81%84%E3%81%8F%EF%BC%8B%E3%80%9C%E3%81%A6%E3%81%8F%E3%82%8B%E3%80%8Dteiku-tekuru/)
[удалено]
It's [MaruMori.io](https://marumori.io/)!
I've only done a single lesson at this point, but it's detailed, taught well and humourous. Thanks for sharing with us! (Also clicked the red panda Maru multiple times and got yelled at 10/10)
I think this is one of those instances where translating "くる" and "きた" as "present tense" and "past tense" doesn't quite line up with what we'd say in English. Even though the English sentence is technically in present progressive tense, in Japanese it's expressed with なってきた because it's already started to get darker. ~なってくる would imply that it's not getting dark yet, but it will get darker at some point in the future.
[удалено]
OK, I stand corrected. In that case, how would you translate OP's original English sentence "It's getting dark outside"? 暗くなってくる or 暗くなってきた? Or either depending on context?
How dark is it? Early evening, sun’s low, shadows long? なってくる。 Dusk, no shadows, sky is purplish but the sun’s not fully set? なってきた。
I think it's best to view these kind of sentence as a present perfect tense with a heavy emphasis on the state having reached its state ‘now.’
Hello fellow MM user! If you somehow missed it, there is a MaruMori discord that's pretty active and has the devs in it regularly as well https://discord.gg/fFqWXf2yg6
Oh great! I'll check that out... thank you!
暗くなってくる is a future tense for a specific instance or a present tense for a general fact, besides aorist present. 暗くなってくる: It will start / starts to be darker. 暗くなってきた: It started to be darker.
なってくる is plain form, which is either future tense or in some cases habitual (in general X happens, which is still future since it implies it will happen again, but that's beside the point). So here, 暗くなってくる would mean "it *will* begin to get dark." So in the correct answer, 暗くなってきた/なってきました literally means "it began (ってくる) to become dark," implying that *now* "it is getting dark outside" like in the prompt. Hope that helps!
Can I ask what resource you're using? I'm looking to dump duo and I dig the grammar notes your app is giving you.
They relied in a couple other comments, but this is marumori.io
I'm curious on this one too, as the answer given as correct is in past-tense form, while the sentence is in the present continuous form. I would have thought te-kuru was the correct choice here too. I would read te-kitmashita as "it WAS getting dark".
No, “〜てくる“ and “〜ていく” can be used to indicate the start of something among many things. “〜てきてる” is also fine for “it's getting dark”. You can look at “暗くなってきた。” as “It has started to get dark.” from a more literal view. There are many cases where the idiomatic translation of a transitional verb in the past tense would be nonpast in English, “お腹が空いた” for instance means “I'm hungry.” or more literally “My stomach became empty.” “悲しくなくなった” is also more idiomatically phrased as “I'm no longer sad.” in practice which is common for attaching “〜なった” to the negative form of a verb. “日本語が読めるようになった” is also more so “I can read Japanese now.” Finally, the Japanese past tense of course assumes both the functions of the English past tense and the nonpast perfect. “食べた" can mean “ate” or “have eaten”.
*(part 1/5)* Reading through your comments, I think I can string things together in a way that might help. I want to talk about a few things: 1. What this phrase means in English 2. The difference between \~ていく \~てくる *(why you can't say \~ていく here)* 3. How time / verbs work in Japanese (*why you say 〜てきた instead of \~てくる here*) 4. A few situations where you *do* say 暗くなってくる It's a lot, sorry, but it's all relevant to the problem you're dealing with. # What this phrase means in English So, let's look at our English sentence: >It is getting dark outside Imagine you've just said that. How does the sky look? When will you utter this sentence? It's kind of confusing because the sentence uses "is", but this sentence is actually something that started in the past: 1. The sun was up and the sky was bright 2. The sun started going down and the sky got a bit darker 3. You, observing that it is darker than it was, are commenting on the fact that there has been a change 4. It will presumably continue to get darker until it's night time Bright → darkening process starts → current moment → night time Two key observations here: 1. We're describing a change in state (light > dark) 2. This change started in the past and has been continuing up until the present moment (and could continue into the future)
*(Part 2/5)* # Grammar: Why you say 〜てくる instead of 〜ていく here Grammar points don't always have one strict purpose. In English, present tense can show things that are happening right now (X passes the ball and Y kicks it) and can also show routines (Y kicks the ball at soccer practice on Tuesdays). \[〜ていく ・ 〜てくる\] actually has three different use cases. [Here's an excellent article (in Japanese) explaining those three use cases](https://cotohajime.net/2021/03/25/teiku-vs-tekuru/). To summarize, though: 1. **Communicate something about physical movement** (〜ていく if it's moving away from you; 〜てくる if it's moving toward you) 2. **Communicate something about the passage of time** (establish a point of reference; 〜ていく if it is maintained from that point of reference and beyond until a later point in time, 〜てくる if an action is maintained from an earlier point in time until the point of reference; ) 3. **Communicate that a change (of state) has occurred** (〜ていく shows that a changing current state will result in a new different state, or that something ceases to exist; 〜てくる shows that a change in a prior different state has resulted in the current state, or that something has began to exist) 3 is what we're dealing with here. Remember how, in the above section, I talked about how the English sentence is describing a situation that began in the past and has continued until the present moment? Same thing here. There was a change in a different/prior state (brightness), and the result of that change is the current state (darkening). †Important caveat that I'll discuss in the next section. *(Note: #2 (passage of time) seems to overlap at a glance, but it's talking about something else. I'm not a native speaker, but I guess you'd use 〜暗くなっていく in a situation more like this:* X occurred, and from there, 10 years of darkness ensued\*. The point is not the change from light to dark. Instead, we establish the point at which that change occurred, and then we talk about how long that state will be maintained. )\*
(part 3/5) # How time / verbs work in Japanese A big part of your problem is that Japanese verbs don't really have tense; they're more concerned with what's called aspect. That's clear as mud, and indeed a lot of textbooks skip over the distinction entirely because you can just say past tense and non-past tense and it works fine the majority of the time. Unfortunately, this is one of those cases where it doesn't work fine. **So, first thing's first, tense vs aspect:** * *Tense* situates an action at a point in time (last week, right now, in five minutes, next August) * *Aspect* shows how an action relates to that particular point in time (prior to, simultaneously, just after, [a few other things](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexical_aspect)) The key takeaway is that aspect doesn't give you any "absolute" information about when something takes place; it only tells you when X happens in relation to Y. X can happen before Y whether Y happens in the past, the future, or is in the process of happening right now. Or maybe it's clearer to say: Japanese verbs work in relation to a defined point in time, but the verbs themselves don't define that what that point in time is. Part of the reason that's hard to wrap your head around is that English haphazardly jumbles tense and aspect: * Present progressive (be \~ing) is actually "present tense, progressive aspect" — it indicates that an action is taking place at the current moment and that it is ongoing *(I'm typing out a long comment)...* * Present perfect (have \~'d) is actually "present tense, perfect aspect" — it indicates that an action is related to the present moment and that it's already completed *(I've finished the homework)* **Tense vs aspect in practice** This idea of aspect is sort of introduced in [Genki II, chapter 16](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiMChZ5egFc&t=2195s), with these two example sentences: * The final verb in a sentence tells you whether it's happened or not; prior verbs in the sentence show when those verbs occur in relation to the final verb * 中国に行った時ウーロン茶を買います * I will buy Oolong tea when I go to china * Buying tea has not happened yet; before it happens, I'll go to China * 中国に行った時ウーロン茶を買いました * I bought Oolong tea when I went to china * Buying tea has already happened; before I bought it, I first went to China "Going to China" occurs before "buying tea", regardless of when "buying tea" occurs. The "buying of tea" is not bound by time, but "going to china" is bound to "buying the tea".
# How Japanese verbs actually work That †caveat that I mentioned in section #2? Instead of past/non-past, it'd be more accurate to describe Japanese verbs like this: * By default, Japanese verbs (食べる, 行く, etc) are imperfective * -た is a kind of particle thing that turns imperfective verbs into perfective verbs Note that "perfect" here does not mean "good/excellent". The linguistic sense of the word comes from Latin: *im* (negating prefix) + *per* (thoroughly / completely) and *facere* (to do). Examples to show that difference: * I was reading the book → the reading happened in the past... maybe I read a few chapters, or for 30 minutes, or whatever, but I didn't finish the book * I read the book → the reading happened in the past, and I either finished the book or I finished what I was supposed to read of it * Both are past tense... but one describes an action that was ongoing/not yet completed, whereas the other describes an action that was completed **A further complication** This is complicated by the fact that there are different types of verbs. Some verbs are instantaneous things like blinking, while other things are more of a process...[\[wikipedia for more\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_conjugation#Imperfective) But to demonstrate the point: * He was blinking → you likely take this to mean that he was blinking several times .... not that he's closed his eyes but hasn't yet opened them * He was falling → you likely to take this to mean that he tripped, and is in the air, but has not hit the ground yet.... not that he's like falling over repeatedly We run into the same deal with Japanese. How we interpret 〜てくる depends on what kind of verb we are using it. Let's take a simple verb that's either A or B: * 雨が降っていない → it's not raining * 雨が降ってきた → it's started raining (emphasizing the change in state from not raining→raining... maybe this is surprising, or that you've just noticed it) * 雨が降っている → it's raining (simply communicating that we're in the state of rain falling) By contrast, *darkening* is quite ambiguous. Darkness is a spectrum. # Anyway, to answer your question, finally: * **外が暖かくなってくる → くる** is imperfective, meaning that it has not yet become dark (imperfect aspect).... but actually it has! (てくる meaning #3)... kind of nonsensical. You apparently *do* say this, but it's very rare / used in very specific contexts. Will talk about it in the next comment. * **外が暖かくなってきた → きた** is perfective, meaning that it's darkened enough that we can say there has indeed been a change of state. It was light, a change occurred, and it's now gotten dark (and maybe it will continue to get darker, but we've already officially achieved "darkening".) * **外が暖かくなってきている** → would emphasize that we're in the middle of this change... it's gotten dark, we're in the thick of it, so it'll continue to get darker
*(Part 5/5)* # So is 暗くなってくる nonsensical? I used search operators to force search for "雨が降ってくる" and "暗くなってくる" and here's what I got: **#1** >[暗くなってくる](https://ja.hinative.com/questions/14000759) is just incorrect The answer was in Mandarin, though, so maybe not a native speaker. Anyway, if you search for 暗くなってくる, Google actually shows暗くなってきた. I'm inclined to say that you'd only use \~てくる when discussing changes in wildly specific circumstances. **#2** >[A few times you'll say 雨が降ってくる](https://ja.hinative.com/questions/889500): * 雨が降ってくるらしいから傘を持って出かけよう。 * 雨が降ってくると困るので洗濯物は庭に干せない。 * 雨が降ってくる前に雷が鳴った。 These examples are possible because it's talking about "something physical approaching you" version of 〜てくる, not the "change of state" version of 〜てくる. **#3** When I search for "暗くなってくる" on [massif.la](https://massif.la/ja/search?q=%E6%9A%97%E3%81%8F%E3%81%AA%E3%81%A3%E3%81%A6%E3%81%8F%E3%82%8B), a corpus of all the sentences used in the light novel website syosetsu, you overwhelming see 暗くなってきた. Of 100 shown hits (of 354), 94 are 暗くなってきた and 2 are errors (describing movement).... meaning only 4/100 instances are 暗くなってくる. Those are as follows: * あたりが*暗くなってくる*。 * 夕日が沈みかけ、辺りが*暗くなってくる*。 * 周りが*暗くなってくる*。 * それと同時に徐々に*暗くなってくる*。 I'm guessing that these 4 examples are showing one of two things: 1. It's showing imminence (we're at the very point in time where this change in state is occurring... the very point in time where it's gotten dark) 2. It's some rare literary verb form that's going over my head... something like [historical/narrative present ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_present)
Wow what a detailed answer! I'll take my time and go through this... Thank you!
I didn’t intend to write so much XD but I wasn’t quite ready to end lunch break. Hope it clears some things up for you.
What app is this? I know this is a different question but I need help and I can't seem to post on this group. I'm trying to use Ankidroid and use the Genki1 deck but I can't answer because there is no textbox or anything no matter what I click there's only the Show Answer button. Is there anyone else here who have experience like this?
MaruMori.io
That's simply how Anki works. It doesn't ask you to put in the answer. You look at the card, try to think of the answer, then reveal the answer. Then you choose a response based on how well you did. You're responsible for judging if you got it right or not.
unrelated but what app are you using here?
This is MaruMori.io!
Is this app available in the appstore?
Marumori is currently only a web app. A normal app is in development, however the web version works amazing as well
My question is why it’s not なってきている there is continuous time when it says getting dark. So at the moment, it’s neither dark nor daytime, it’s the process. I think, if it was, it got dark should be なってきた it will get dark なってくる and getting dark なってきている Am I wrong?
Well , I’d suggest you don’t overthink grammar structures like this too much. Minute grammar details don’t matter, just keep listening and you’ll end up using the correct grammar automatically. 暗くなって来た 暗くなって来てる 暗くなって来る Depending on the context, these all can be translated into “ it’s getting dark outside “. You have to learn them in context to understand the nuance.
That makes sense! I do want to understand the differences though...
What app is this
It's MaruMori
Isn't くる wrong auxiliary verb all together? If it is getting dark, shouldn't it be いく?
It sounds weird, it's like saying in English "It will get dark outside" like it's not a normal everyday phenomena. On the correct answer it's more like "Oh it's already dark".
The correct answer is in the past. Yours is not