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Verbs - habitual or present?

Dante17

先輩
3 Dec 2013
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Hello, I'm new to this forum so please forgive me if this is in the wrong area. I've been having a bit of confusion regarding how to tell if a verb is being used in a habitual sense or a present tense. For example:

Watashi wa eki ni ikimasu

Would this mean:

I am going to the station

Or

I go to the train station (habitual)

Thanks
 
It depends on the context or temporal adverbs/phrases. For instance, "Watashi wa asu eki ni ikimasu" is future, and "Watashi wa maiasa eki ni ikimasu" is a habitual action.
 
Ah! So something like a frequency word and context defines it. I thought there was an entirely different way of saying it to make it habitual.

Arigatou gozaimasu!

( no kana characters on my phone :c )
 
It depends on the context or temporal adverbs/phrases. For instance, "Watashi wa asu eki ni ikimasu" is future, and "Watashi wa maiasa eki ni ikimasu" is a habitual action.

Oh, and if I wanted to say:

''I am going to the station now''

would I say

''Watashi wa ima eki ni ikimasu'' ?

or simply

'' Watashi wa eki ni ikimasu '' ?

Just for my understanding.
 
Normally you would say 'eki ni ikimasu'. If you needed to draw attention to it being -you- that's going you could put the 'watashi wa' on the front, and if you needed to draw attention to it being -now- you could use 'ima' or 'imasugu'.
 
Oh, and if I wanted to say:

''I am going to the station now''

would I say

''Watashi wa ima eki ni ikimasu'' ?

or simply

'' Watashi wa eki ni ikimasu '' ?

Just for my understanding.
The original English sentence "I am going to the station now" is ambiguous in meaning. It can mean both "I'm on the way to go to the station (have already left home)" and "I'll go to the station soon (still at home)" depending on the context. These two expressions are usually differentiated in Japanese. For instance, "Watashi wa eki ni ikimasu" is hardly used for the former case even when used with "ima".
I think "Eki ni iku tokoro desu" might be close to it in the sense of ambiguity. This expression can have these two meanings.
 
The original English sentence "I am going to the station now" is ambiguous in meaning.
Ah. That's true, I suppose, if I think about the rules of grammar. However, in natural usage (at least in my region), it would never be used to mean "I'm on my way to the station." It always means "I'm departing shortly to go to the station." If you use the same grammar with other verbs of motion - e.g. "I'm walking to the station now" - it's slightly ambiguous but usually means "I've already departed and am traveling toward the station."

(Although "I'm on my way" is sometimes used to mean "I'm departing as soon as I possibly can", but that's not any ambiguity in grammar, that's just trying to make the situation sound better than it is.)
 
Yeah, my first thought was 今から駅に行きます when I saw "I am going to the station now."
 
Oh, interesting, really. So, the present form "ikimasu" perfectly fits that situation (I haven't departed yet). And yes, "ima kara" is a nice translation. To tell the truth, I couldn't think of it.😌

BTW, this is completely off topic, but I'm sorry Glenn-san for the Monday Night Football game yesterday. (The game live on-aired on NHK-BS in Japan.) The situation seems to become tougher for Saints...:(
 
offtopic

Yeah, that was a bummer. I wasn't expecting a win, exactly (that's a tough place to play), but I wasn't really expecting that either. Sometimes the other guys just play better.

/offtopic
 
Dante17さん
こんにちは。私は日本語の先生です。

「わたしは駅に行きます」は3つの意味(mean)があります。
1.私は駅に(明日orあさってor1時間あとに…)行きます。
2.私はこれから駅に行くところです
3.わたしは駅に(毎日orいつも)行きます。
「毎日、明日、あさって」などがある時は1の意味になります。
「毎日、明日、あさって」などがない時は1〜3の意味になります。

分からない時は、その文の前やうしろで考えてください。
例えば…
「私は明日東京へ行きますから、私は駅に行きます。」は1です。
「私の友達が駅につきました。私は駅に行きます。」は2です。
「私の会社は東京にありますから、私は駅に行きます。」は3です。

最後に、
 
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