もっている vs. もつ

nalo6451 · 6 Jul 2017

Hello friends.

So I'm currently learning short/casual form and wondering where もっている comes from. Specifically, when asking "Do you have a bicycle?" why is もっている used instead of もつ? If I were to ask "Do you drink coffee?" in casual form I would say "coffeeをのむ？" or if I ask "Do you eat fish?" I would say "さかなをたべる？". In each of these instances I just use the root form of the verbs, but when asking "Do you have a bicycle?" the root verb もつ is not used (じてんしゃをもつ）but instead もっている is used (じてんしゃをもっている？).

Why is this so?

joadbres · 6 Jul 2017

When learning a second language, you want to stop using your native language as much as possible, because it will interfere with your learning.
Your sentences are not equivalent. The fish and coffee sentences describe a periodic, repeating action, while the bicycle sentence describes a state: the state of owning a bicycle. Because they are not equivalent, you should not expect that any given language will express these in the same way. In Japanese, states are often expressed using the ている form.

diligentcircle · 6 Jul 2017

This is what GENKI I has to say about that topic (lesson 7, pages 170-171):

When the te-form of a verb [that describes activities that last for some time] is followed by the helping verb いる, we have a sentence describing an action in progress.... You can also use a ～ています sentence to describe what a person does by occupation or by habit....

[Another group of verbs describes] changes from one state to another. If you get married, or 結婚する, for example, your status changes from being single to being married. With these verbs, ている indicates a past occurrence of a change which has retained its significance until the present moment. In other words, ている describes the result of a change.

Great book. I highly recommend it.

nalo6451 · 6 Jul 2017

JuliMaruchan said:
This is what GENKI I has to say about that topic (lesson 7, pages 170-171):

Great book. I highly recommend it.

I actually went back and read up on te form in Genki after joadbres commented. I'd completely forgotten about ている form as I took a break from studying Japanese, but also because the application of ている had only been presented as ています, so when I saw ている I completely forgot it was the root form of ています. Anyway I'm straight now as to what's going on. Thanks.

もっている vs. もつ

nalo6451

Kouhai

joadbres

八方凡人

diligentcircle

Sempai

nalo6451

Kouhai

Similar threads