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- "ゆうびんきょくにてがみをもって行きます。"
"ゆうびんきょくにてがみをもって行きます。"
Translation:I am going to the post office with a letter.
26 Comments
The problem is, many of the English translations given are idiomatic, not word for word literal from the Japanese expression...it needs to be more consistent...just saying! I actually tested completely out, although I never learned kanji...but saw some areas I'm weak in, as I learned Japanese by ear, not books...but I am considered fluent, and my husband of 45 years has never learned English, so I still speak it every day
Perhaps my memory is rusty, but my understanding of "motte ikimasu" is that it connotes carrying while going, and thus "I carry/am carrying a letter to the post office" would be a logical idiomatic translation. Obviously you would not translate it literally as "I go to the post office having carried/while carrying a letter" because that produces a very awkward English sentence, but it reflects the grammatical tie between "motte" and "ikimasu." It's nitpicky, but recalling Japanese class "I am carrying a letter to the post office" feels more correct and yet still fairly natural. Thoughts?
673
Why the present progressive form is used here. It the musu-Form of 持って行く so simple present or will future should be fine.
www.tanoshiijapanese.com has "motteiku" using kanji only for "mo", and then the rest in hiragana. I think having the "i" in kanji makes it way more difficult to unterstand since it can be confused with the verb "to go".
It's not the present progressive form. The present progressive is the combination of the -て form with いる, not the -て form by itself. The literal translation of 持って行きます would be "I carry and go" or "I go while carrying". The -て form is a little bit like the -ing form in English which is used with "to be" to make the progressive, but it's also used for other purposes