"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 verb phrase in this sentence 持って行く(もっていく) means to take (something) with you (when you go somewhere)
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
Yes you're right, but those ideomatc English translations are not the only ones being used for the same event, so there should be a big variety of possibilities, not only one
Yep. The verb of choice is "take" or, if you're German-Canadian "bring."
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?
English uses "take" or "bring" depending on the listener's position.
Yep...I'm taking a letter to the post office is idiomatic, and exactly same yranslated meaning
"I'm bringing a letter to the post office" works. Interestingly, "I BRING a letter to the post office" is not accepted.
99
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".
Hmm... So if we're currently taking the letter to the post office, we change 'to carry' and not 'to go' to the -te form to create the present progressive tense? Can it work either way?
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
Wouldn't that be もって行っています? Or shouldn't the translation be "I'll go to the post office with a letter" or "I bring a letter to the post office"?
Or actually "I take a letter to the post office" because bring would be もって来ます
