Te-Iru in Japanese: Progressive, Habit, and Resulting State

Three jobs, one shape

Te iru attaches to the te-form of a verb, and the whole unit behaves like a new verb: polite te imasu, plain te iru, negative te imasen, past te imashita. What changes is what the combination reports. With a verb whose action occupies time, it reports that the action is under way. With a time expression such as mainichi or shū ni ni-kai, the same shape reports a repeated habit. With a verb that names an instant change, it reports the state that the change left behind.

Because English uses one -ing form for the first two and a completely different structure for the third, learners tend to translate rather than choose. The reliable move is to sort the verb first and then predict the meaning. Once you can say which of the three a verb produces, you stop guessing and start hearing the difference in what Japanese speakers say to you.

Building the form from the dictionary form

Take the dictionary form, make the te-form, and add imasu. Ichidan verbs drop ru and add te, so taberu becomes tabete and tabete imasu. Godan verbs follow the sound groups: u, tsu and ru become tte, so matsu becomes matte; mu, bu and nu become nde, so yomu becomes yonde; ku becomes ite and gu becomes ide, so kaku becomes kaite and oyogu becomes oyoide; su becomes shite, so hanasu becomes hanashite. Suru becomes shite and kuru becomes kite, and the one high-frequency exception is iku, which becomes itte. The dedicated te-form guide drills the conjugation itself if you need it.

The verb decides the reading

One useful test: ask whether the verb names something you could be halfway through. You can be halfway through reading, so yonde imasu is in progress. You cannot be halfway through dying in ordinary speech, so shinde imasu jumps to the far side of the change and means is dead. Japanese uses shini-kakete imasu or a different construction for the dying part.

Action in progress

This is the reading learners already expect, and it is the safest place to start speaking. Add ima at the front when you want to make now explicit, and expect the same shape back in the reply. Nani o shite imasu ka is the everyday question that pulls this form out of the other person, and the answer is almost never a bare masu form.

Habit and repetition

Add a frequency or period expression and the same form stops meaning at this second. Mainichi, maiasa, saikin, kotoshi and shū ni ni-kai all push te imasu toward habit. This is how Japanese speakers answer questions about work, study and routine, so it is worth more to you than the progressive reading in a first conversation. The plain masu form is also possible here, but te imasu adds the sense of an arrangement that is currently running.

Resulting state

Change-of-state verbs describe a moment, not a stretch: a window opens, a light goes out, a wallet falls, a person marries. Te iru with these verbs points at the world after that moment. Notice how many of them are intransitive and take ga, because you are describing a condition rather than an action someone is performing. These sentences are the ones learners avoid, and they are exactly what you need to report a problem in a shop, a hotel or an office.

Kowarete imasu is the sentence that gets a problem fixed, and kowaremashita is not a good substitute: the past tense reports the moment of breaking, while te imasu reports that it is broken now and needs attention. The same holds for aite imasu and shimatte imasu when you ask whether a shop is open or closed.

The verbs learners get wrong

Six verbs cause most of the trouble because English uses a simple present for them while Japanese insists on te iru. Shiru, motsu, sumu and kiru name a change into a state, so knowing, having, living and wearing are all te iru in Japanese. Iku and kuru report that someone made the trip and is still at the other end, which is why itte imasu never means is going.

Shiru also has a famously uneven negative. The positive is shitte imasu, but for I do not know say shirimasen. Shitte imasen is possible in narrow contexts but sounds wrong as an everyday answer, and it is the single most common slip in this area.

Teru, the negative, and te ita

In casual speech the i of iru disappears. Tabete imasu becomes tabeteru, tabete imasen becomes tabetenai, and tabete imashita becomes tabeteta. Keep the full form with staff, teachers, clients and anyone you have just met, and let the contraction come out with friends. The negative te imasen is also how Japanese says not yet: mada tabete imasen means I have not eaten yet, while tabemasen deshita reports that you did not eat on some finished occasion.

Te imashita puts the whole thing in the past. With a durative verb it gives was doing, and with a change-of-state verb it gives was in that state at the time. Matte imashita is one of the most useful lines in the set, because it tells someone you were already waiting rather than that you waited and stopped.

Te aru and the o-to-ga shift

Te aru is the neighbour of the resulting state. It uses a transitive verb and reports that someone did the action on purpose and left the result in place, ready for a reason. The grammar shifts with the meaning: the noun that was the object with o becomes the subject with ga. Mado o akemashita, I opened the window, becomes mado ga akete arimasu, the window has been opened and left that way.

Compare the three sentences about a window and the difference becomes concrete. Mado o akete imasu describes someone in the act of opening it. Mado ga aite imasu simply reports that it is open. Mado ga akete arimasu says it is open because a person opened it and meant it to stay open. In an office, te aru is how you say the preparation is done.

In casual speech you will also hear the object particle kept, as in yoyaku shite aru, and it is understood. Produce the ga version yourself until the pattern is automatic, because it is the form that makes the deliberate preparation reading clear.

Minimal pairs worth memorising

A drill that fixes the three readings

• Narrate thirty seconds of what is around you using only in-progress te imasu sentences, with no pauses to translate.
• Answer five questions about your life with habit te imasu: where you live, work, study, exercise and shop.
• Describe three things in your room that are in a state: something open, something broken, something switched off.
• Say the six troublesome verbs in full sentences, then say the shiru negative correctly twice: shirimasen, not shitte imasen.
• Take one object and produce the trio: someone opening it, its state, and its state with te aru.
• Repeat the whole set in the past with te imashita, then again casually with teru and teta.