Grammar Info

N5 Lesson 7: 7/13

～て (Sequence)

And, And then, After that (sequence)

Structure

Verb［て］+ (Action) Phrase

Details

  • Part of Speech

    Particle

  • Word Type

    Conjunctive Particle

  • Register

    Standard

About Verb + て+ B

The て form of a verb, followed by another verb phrase is often translated to 'then', or 'and then', and is how Japanese lists sequences of events that happen one after another.

Caution

This grammar construction is used for listing things that happen in order, for example 'I did (A), then (B), then (C)'. Other grammar structures will need to be used if you would like to talk about things that happen/happened in no particular order. For example たり～たりする, which will appear in a sentence like 'I did things like (C), and (A), oh, and (B)!'

Examples

--:--

    晩(ばん)ご飯(はん)を食(た)べて歯(は)を磨(みが)いた。

    I ate dinner and brushed my teeth.

    ともこは鍵(かぎ)をかけて出(で)かけました。

    Tomoko locked up the house and left.

    明日(あした)は９時(じ)に起(お)きて、朝(あさ)ごはんを食(た)べて買(か)い物(もの)に行(い)きます。

    Tomorrow I will wake up at 9 (and), eat breakfast, and go shopping.

    「東京(とうきょう)に行(い)って何(なに)をしたの？」

    'What did you do after you went to Tokyo?'
    （'You went to Tokyo, and then what did you do?')

    ひとみさんのお母(かあ)さんに会(あ)って一緒(いっしょ)に戻(もど)りました。

    I met Hitomi's mother, and we went back together.

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Verb + て+ B – Grammar Discussion

Most Recent Replies (11 in total)

  • additionalramen

    additionalramen

    The English translations of the example sentences for this grammar point are given in the past tense, but the て-forms of these verbs are not actually past tense in Japanese, right? Does the て-form just sort of …exist outside of time in Japanese? Or is thinking about it in terms of verb tense too English-centric?

  • casual

    casual

    Heh, you are completely right. In English and some other languages, when enumerating actions, you’d put each action independently into the past tense, e.g. “we went there and did that”.

    But in Japanese, て form doesn’t get modified for the tense like that. You infer the time when things happened based on the sequence of events, the tense of the last action/event in the sequence, and any context words like “tomorrow”.

  • additionalramen

    additionalramen

    This is helpful and interesting - thank you!

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