～て (Sequence)And, And then, After that (sequence)

Structure

Verb［て］+ (Action) Phrase

Details

Part of Speech
Particle
Word Type
Conjunctive Particle
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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(くじ)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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Online
- Expressing a sequence of verbs with the te-form
  Tae Kim
- Making requests, linking sentences, & more
  Kanji Link
- The conjunctive particle て
  Imabi
- Using て- Form as “and”
  PuniPuni
- て Form
  Tofugu

Offline
- Genki I 2nd Edition
  Page 152
- Tae Kim's Japanese Grammar Guide
  Page 105
- みんなの日本語 I
  Page 104 [CH 16]
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Verb + て+ B – Grammar Discussion

Most Recent Replies (11 in total)

Pushindawood
and
and then
after
Structure
- Verb[ て ] + Action/Event
  Verb[て] conjugations
[This version of て is used to express a sequence of events]

[Verb[て] + B is often used with action verbs to express that actions have been taken in order. The verb in て-form happens first, and then the action/event (B)]

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ferbeb
If you want to add that to “Readings”, it would be “Describing Two Activities” on page 152 of Genki I 2nd edition
Pushindawood
@ferbeb Thank you! I have updated the Readings section and added this grammar point to the Genki I Path. Cheers!
MikkaT
Hi,
I have a question about this example sentence.

Would
きのうのあさはおきてなにをしたんですか
mean the same or is it either wrong or something different?
Thanks in advance
IcyIceBear
I would say it does. It changes from

" Yesterday (all day, any time during that day), after you woke up in the morning what did you do?" to " Yesterday morning (only this time, this is the topic, I don’t care about afternoon or evening, yesterday morning), what did you do after waking up? "

This is how I would interpret the difference
MikkaT
Thanks, that makes sense.
komocode
「うちに帰かえって昼寝ひるねをしたい。」（帰かえる）

‘I want to go home and take a nap.’

Should it be I want to return home?
Maxinoume
What’s the difference between the lesson here and this earlier lesson?

At first glance, the earlier lesson details only shows sentences with a comma after て but when you look in the example sentences, it isn’t always the case.
Stephenn
I’m very new to this and I had the same question and came here to see if there was an answer. I saw there was no answer so I looked at the examples again. The version in lesson 5 seems to focus on how you add the conjunction particle to the verb. All of the examples are verb → verb + te. The version in lesson 7 seems to be focusing on how that functions by itself in a sentence.

I don’t know why they separated those ideas or put a couple of other ways the te particle functions with verbs before it, but I think that’s the difference.

If anyone else wants to clarify, expand, or explain, would love an answer.
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
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
This is helpful and interesting - thank you!