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Question why ていた is being used here

NoWayYesWay

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Context : These 3 are going to the pool but the heroine (and her brother) are late because she took too long time choosing her hairstyle.

ていた is being used here 2 times, first : お風呂入っていた。and the second : 髪の毛決まらなくてずっと触っていた。

From my understanding, the second ていた is to show the continuation of that verb which had happened in the past [she keeps touching her hair] (please correct me if I'm wrong)

However, I quite don't understand why ていた is being used in the first panel, is it to show the continuation like the second one? Or it is to show her state that she had went to bath, if this is the case then, how is it differ from お風呂入った。 Please help me understand this. Thanks.
 
To me it's the difference between saying "She took a bath" vs. "She was taking a bath." The latter emphasizes the time period/duration of the activity.
Like if you said "I was taking a bath when you called" vs "I took a bath when you called." The latter sounds odd doesn't it?
 
As mdchachi-san suggested, ～て（い）た is the past progressive tense there, and it implies that she was taking a bath when she shouldn't do that.

e.g.
テレビを見ていたので遅刻しました。

This example sentence implies that the speaker was late because they were watching TV when they shouldn't do that (when they needed to leave home, for example), and テレビを見たので sounds odd here.


Just for confirmation, is there a scene where the girl really couldn't choose her hair style previously? It seems to me that きまる means more likely "to be in perfect taste/to look good/to be stylish" rather than "to choose" because of the wordings かみのけ(not 髪型), and さわってた(not いじってた, 変えてた, etc.).
 
I got it! Thank you very much mdchachi-san and Toritoribe-san

There's no scene like that, I think it's just my misunderstanding.

So, it doesn't that she can't came up with a good hairstyle, but she can't style her hair to look good enough so she kept doing it （ずっとさわってた）right?

Since we're at it can I ask another question



I wonder why there's そんなこと言ったか？ instead of そんなこと言ってたか。

I came up with my own explanation and want to make sure if I'm correct or not.

The subject in そんなこと言ったか？ is her so 言った is being used to convey that she didn't said that.
The subject in 絶対言ってねー is そんなこと so 言ってねー is being used to express the state of "that thing" that "that thing" isn't being said (by her) and then can be translated as "I absolutely didn't said that" (lit : that isn't being said (by me) for sure).
 
Looks to me like "Did I say (anything like) that?" and "no way, I definitely haven't said that"

The difference is the first one seems focused on a single utterance, like there is a misunderstanding based on something the subject was thought to have said at a specific point. The second one is less about "I didn't say it that time" and more "I have never said (anything like) that," using the present progressive to emphasize being in the state of "haven't said" that.
 
I agree with nice gaijin-san. ～ている expresses "experience" in 絶対言ってねー.

NoWayYesWay said:
So, it doesn't that she can't came up with a good hairstyle, but she can't style her hair to look good enough so she kept doing it （ずっとさわってた）right?
Click to expand...
Yes, she would keep trying to adjust details of her hair style.
 
Wow, Thank you for your explanation nice gaijin-san and toritoribe-san that's a new perspective of ている for me.
 
NoWayYesWay said:
Wow, Thank you for your explanation nice gaijin-san and toritoribe-san that's a new perspective of ている for me.
Click to expand...
Pleasure, I enjoy discussing the logic of Japanese grammar for some reason!

A minor correction of my previous post though: to literally say "have never said" you would use a different grammar structure which you may or may not have encountered (言ったことがない), but in this context 言っていない could be casually translated as "I never said that," in the context given, as I explained above.

When you think about it, the conjugation of the final verb will (I'll say "usually" here to play it safe) take precedence in Japanese; I used to joke that I could make a whole long statement in Japanese and then completely negate it by using an unexpected conjugation...

The negative "I didn't say" would be 言わなかった but "I haven't said/not saying" would be 言っていない; you use the ~て form of 言う but the negative conjugation is given to いる.

I don't think there's any way to have a negative "I haven't said" kind of statement where you negatively conjugate 言う and have an affirmative いる; the negative ~て form would be 言わないで but that by itself becomes a command/request "do not say." I don't think you could say 言わないでいる, that just sounds weird to me.
 
Sorry, this is just my curious.

Is 言っていない literally means "The me who said (that) doesn't exist." which as you said use to emphasize being in the state of haven't said that?
 
NoWayYesWay said:
Sorry, this is just my curious.

Is 言っていない literally means "The me who said (that) doesn't exist." which as you said use to emphasize being in the state of haven't said that?
Click to expand...
Hmm I guess that's one way you could look at it, though that translation becomes unnatural in English. As you get more comfortable you may not need to think quite so literally with the ~ている form, and think more in terms of the contexts you would use this structure. It's enough to understand it as "haven't said/done/etc"

And as a follow-up, I realized that there is a Verb A~ないで+Verb B form, for "doing Verb B without doing Verb A." However I still find 言わないでいる weird, as you'd usually have a more specific Verb B, like 何も言わないで来た／表れた, "he came/appeared without saying anything."
 
NoWayYesWay said:
Is 言っていない literally means "The me who said (that) doesn't exist." which as you said use to emphasize being in the state of haven't said that?
Click to expand...
Indeed ～ている form is originally from the structure ～て＋いる, i.e., "to do something and then stay in the state",
but it's better to think that ～ている works as a single verb, and ～ていない expresses "never did/ to have never done", not "to do something and then don't stay in the state", as nice gaijin-san explained.


As for ～ていない vs. ～ないでいる, these expressions can have different meanings. For example, 食べていない just expresses a state "didn't eat/haven't eaten (yet)", while 食べないでいる can emphasize that "the subject doesn't eat intentionally/by their will" because 食べる is a volitional verb.
e.g.
囚人は何も食べないでいる。
The prisoner might be going on a hunger strike here.


ほんとのことは言わないでいて。
This is a female request "Please don't say the truth", emphasizing that "keep the state of not saying the truth".

冗談言ってないで、仕事しろ。
In this sentence, the meaning of the first clause is "don't keep the state of saying jokes", thus, it means "Stop saying jokes, and work!".

言わないでいる and 言っていない are not interchangeable in these examples.
 
Turns out these two ～ていない and ～ないでいる are confusing me than I thought
I think I'll get more familiar with it as I read more Japanese materials

For me, ～ている has so many usage thus, various meaning which depend on the situation. One of its usages is to express experience which for me I found this very similar to ～た (especially when ～ていた is used) like ～ていた in this sentence : 講義中に何の話をしていた？ How is it different from 講義中に何の話をした？
 
Functionally they can be very similar, just like in English you could say "What was discussed in the lecture" and "What was talked about during the lecture" and "What was the topic of the lecture." There could be variations in nuance, as these sentences could mean "what did the lecturer talk about?" or "what was being talked about during lecture?" or even "what was the intended purpose of the lecture?" which all could suggest that different people talked and different/unexpected topics were discussed. This could all be cleared up with more context, and the more you expose yourself to it you'll begin to internalize which phrasing is best for a given situation.

If you have Netflix, I recommend checking out the Language Learning with Netflix extension, which allows you to display multiple sets of subtitles, so you can get listening practice and see how native speakers phrase themselves in a given scenario.
 
If the speaker saw that the addressee was talking with someone in a lecture, and is asking them what they were talking about, 何の話をしていた is the most common. This is the past progressive tense. 何の話をした is barely acceptable, but sounds a bit odd.

On the other hand, if the speaker is asking the addressee what the professor talked about in the lecture, した and していた are equally common.

Thus, it totally depends on the context, after all.
 
Thank you very much Toritoribe-san, nice gaijin-san and also mdchachi-san, I think I'm good with ～ている now, just have to work up about ～ないでいる a little more and I think I'll be fine
 
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