is・am・are ~ing
Structure
- Verb[て] + いる
[In casual spoken Japanese the い is often dropped. (食べている → 食べてる)]
When used with ‘movement’ words (行く・来る・帰る・戻る) this means ‘state of’
Hello everyone,
I have a short question: I’m currently working through Chapter 7 of Genki I where the ている form is introduced. There is this example sentence:
山下先生は結婚しています。 (Professor Yamashita is married.)
p. 171 if anyone wants to know
There is a sidenote that this sentence does not mean he is getting married.
I do understand this, but my question is: what does mean that he is getting married right now? I flipped through the book, but it doesn’t seem to come up. So what grammatical structure am I looking for?
1 Like
Hey 
There are two ways to say so:
Using ようとする:
アタニさんは今結婚しようとしています。
Atani is getting married right now.
(lit. Atani is attempting to get married now)
This is the default.
Another way is to use つつある:
あたにさんは今結婚しつつあります。
Atani is getting married right now.
But it sounds stiff.
3 Likes
Thank you! 
1 Like
I thought I might as well post it here too
English
My older brother is not sleeping now.
Structure
- 今、兄は______
Hey, I keep getting this grammar wrong, and I’m wondering what the mistake in my thought process is.
So the verb is continuous, and 寝る is ichigodan, so the form should be 寝ている.
For －いる, the present form can be conjugated into:
This review does not specify whether it should be a polite or plain form, so I’d say that either the いません or いない are applicable here.
Despite this, only 寝ていません is accepted in this exercise, but 寝ていない is not. What am I not seeing here?
EDIT:
In this exercise, the conjugation that I expected is actually used.
EDIT2: This was a bug. I was correct, and it has been fixed.
1 Like
Why is 食べています wrong in this example?
お寿司すしを たべている 男おとこの人ひとは、私わたしの兄あにです。[食たべる]
The man who is eating sushi is my older brother
1 Like
Hey 
This is very good question!
When modifying a noun (describing what the noun is), you should use a short form instead of a polite form.
By the way, generally, politeness is marked only at the end of the sentence.
So, in this example:
お寿司をたべている男の人は、私の兄です。
Politeness is marked by です already, you don’t need anything more.
彼は忙しいのに 、ゲームをしています。
Despite being busy, he is playing video games.
In this example, only ています is in polite form.
I hope it helps 
Cheers!
2 Likes
So I understand the ている-form really well and have been using it for as long as I could output 日本語, but I have a question:
て-ception confuses me, as in 「来ていて」 (edit: or 「てて」). I can’t even come up with an example of a situation I’d use it in but I occasionally see it regardless, could someone provide an example? There isn’t much documentation or mention of it on the grammar page of ている except for a brief orange notice.
1 Like
I guess the most straight-forward way to come up with an example is taking two sentences where the first one ends with 来ている and then connecting them by changing it to the て form?
もう春が来ている。花が咲き出している。
→ もう春が来ていて花が咲き出している。
2 Likes
For the sentence: 私のお父さんが、高い時計をしてる。
So I’m noticing that “してる” is doing a lot in this sentence. I thought that "する” functioned as “is”, but in this sentence is acting as a substitute for “wearing” .
Is there a type of verb this can be done with, or can most verbs be switched out with “する” ?
For instance could you swap out “expensive watch” for “cat” and implicitly change the meaning of "する” from “wearing” to “owns” ?
As in: 私のお父さんが、猫をしてる。- My father owns a cat.
Sorry for the weird question lol, just trying to wrap my head around this.
-best,
MP
Hi, I have another question.
I was wondering if you can use ている/ていません with ないで or なくて.
What are the different meanings or nuances of those forms, if they are even correct?
Deepl could not help me to see what are the differences.
It can be used with ないで but not with なくて. With ないで it means keeping up a state of not doing something.
寝ていない - “I haven’t slept” or “I’m not sleeping”
寝ないでいる - “I’ve been staying awake”
There is a related grammar point in N2 for ないではいられない.
2 Likes
I’m asked to use the negative form of 〜ている form even when there is no information about it in this grammar point and I haven’t learned it yet otherwise. Might be good to check that the exercises correspond to the information provided in each grammar point.
Have you learned the negative form of ichidan verbs? The one where you drop the る and add ない/ません
I figured after checking the correct answer that’s it’s probably related to that grammar point, still, it could be useful to have a mention of it in this grammar point to make it clear how it works. I assume there isn’t a separate lesson about the negative form of 〜ている later on.
Was in the same boat as @mietolim here. In part because I’m following the Genki path and casual negation is actually covered after the basics of て. I agree, that a pointer would be nice as I also expected the page to be more “batteries included” in light of the other high quality info that is already there.
Hey can I resurrect this thread to 2nd onekun’s confusion?
I think I get the ~ている as ongoing action concept, and even the ~てて conjuction of more than one verb phrase, but I would never think to use it like this
これを捨ててください (from one of the -ra pluralizer prompts)
How is this different from これを捨てください?
Edit: duh never mind the first て is part of the verb itself. Question not deleted so I can feel the shame. 
(Still, I feel like I do see that ~てて sometimes when it’s not conjunctive, just never at a convenient time to catch it and ask. Still watching for a good example)
1 Like