This is a discussion topic for the N5 Lesson 10 reading passages.
These are great. Thanks for including them!
I stumbled on this line and was hoping someone could walk me through it.
まだライオンは寝ていていません
The lions are still sleeping.
At first glance it looked like ‘the lions have not yet gone to sleep’ まだ + て + いない・いません but that doesn’t make sense in terms of the story.
There is another いて sandwiched in there, which I’m assuming is 行く in the temporal sense but I still can’t work out why the まだ means still instead of not yet, when there is the negative ending.
Can anyone clear this up for me? Thanks.
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Where does this sample sentence come from? If so can you provide a screenshot of it? It’s making me scratch my head too. まだ ~ ていません seems like an obvious use here and even putting the sentence in ichi.moe is getting me generally the same results every time.
Each lesson has its own discussion. This was N5 L10, the one about the zoo.
Oh for some reason I thought you were talking about an outside sentence that used a grammar point, clearly I need more coffee. I am like fairly sure it’s a typo considering the point links to まだ～ていません and most examples used in the reading passages aren’t super intense with the nuance. Obviously wait for admin/someone else to chime in but I think what you had written is correct for what it should have been.
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Also て行く and て来る in the temporal sense don’t even show up until halfway through N4… and they still confuse me, if I’m honest.
What’s troubling you with て行く? If there’s an example sentence on Bunpro you wanna use to help illustrate the confusion that’d make it a lot easier. て来る throws me off more than て行く but maybe I shed some light a tiny bit better
I wouldn’t even know where to start! I get the physical movement, that’s easy. It’s when to assume that it’s not used to indicate physical movement but temporal movement.
When they are used as auxiliary verbs to imply temporal movement, that ties me in knots.
て行く denotes that something continues in a state from the point where the state change occurs, up until the current time of speaking, right? But then it can also mean that something occurs at the point of speaking and will continue into the future. But then again て来る can also indicate that something begins and will continue into the future and is interchangeable with て行く, with the difference between the two indicating the level of personal investment in the event itself.
Two example sentences from Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar:
これからは寒くなって行く
It will get colder (and continue to be that way) from now on.
これからは寒くなって来る
It will grow colder from now on.
I literally don’t know whether I’m coming or going!
Thread necromancer here. I too need clarification on @Howl_UK’s first issue in this thread and it never really got explained. Thanks.
These are great. Thanks for including them!
I stumbled on this line and was hoping someone could walk me through it.
まだライオンは寝ていていません
The lions are still sleeping.At first glance it looked like ‘the lions have not yet gone to sleep’ まだ + て + いない・いません but that doesn’t make sense in terms of the story.
There is another いて sandwiched in there, which I’m assuming is 行く in the temporal sense but I still can’t work out why the まだ means still instead of not yet, when there is the negative ending.
Can anyone clear this up for me? Thanks.
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Hey and welcome on the community forums @onekun ! 
This was an error,
まだライオンは寝ていていません
should be まだライオンは寝ていません。
And it should be translated in negative:
The lions are still not asleep.
I have fixed the reading.
Sorry for the inconvenience 
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Thanks @mrnoone !! I feel bad for not responding back to the inital question asked, although I do remember being severely confused by this sentence and wondering if it was just me being dumb.
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I don’t understand the meaning of this Japanese sentence:
今から行くつもりだけれどもパンダをみてから行こう
Or the English translation:
But if we’re planning on going from now, let’s see the pandas, then go.
I’d assume there’s some sort of implication in what the “going” and “go” is referring to but I’m not sure what it is.
今から – from now, starting now, right now
行くつもりだ – intend to go, plan to go
けれども – but, however (this is the end of a clause)
パンダをみてから – after seeing the pandas, once we see the pandas (“see” uses て-form, so in the final translation, the verb tense is taken from the final verb “go”)
行こう – let’s go
We’re planning to go [leave the zoo] right now, but let’s see the pandas, then let’s go. (let’s go after seeing the pandas)
But if we’re planning on going from now, let’s see the pandas, then go.
@hexashadow13 Does that help?
@Asher
– I think “if” should be removed from the English
– I think the Japanese could use a comma to make it easier to understand.
今から行くつもりだけれども、パンダをみてから行こう。
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Hi @FredKore, thanks for the tag! For this one, ‘But if’ is the closest to the actual nuance, so the ‘if’ will be kept.
This is primarly due to the みてから行こう part of the sentence being somewhat of a suggestion directed at the kids, and the ども giving the nuance of ‘even’. 行く would not mean ‘go home’ in this sentence, but to go to a different exhibit (perhaps the polar bears and pandas are in the same part of the zoo, and monkeys are in another). This means the subtext is a bit closer to the following.
今から – from now, starting now, right now
行くつもりだ – an intention of
けれども – but if, (end of a clause)
パンダをみてから – after seeing the pandas,
行こう – let’s go (rather than walking back and forth all over the place)
This also explains why Ken wants to take a rest before walking from one exhibit to the next.
100% agree on the comma making things it easier to read, will add that right now. Thanks for the suggestion 
Thanks. I wasn’t sure about the [leave the zoo] aspect. Does 行く generally refer to leaving the place you’re at if there isn’t any other location explicit or implied from being previously referred to?
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行く is generally not used to mean ‘leave’, unless you are going from one place, to another (not home) place. For returning home, 帰る is almost always what will be used. In the case that the family wanted to go from the zoo to a restaurant or something, then 行く could definitely be used.
Sorry, right, it’s just indicating moving from here to somewhere else. I made an assumption without double checking. Thank you @Asher!
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I respectfully disagree. “If” always has a hypothetical or a conditional phrase that follows. In this situation, Ken is not debating what Tarou wants or giving an alternate scenario. けれども has the sense of “even” but doesn’t introduce doubt. I think you’re trying to capture the sense of “now that we’re talking about going, let’s go see the pandas”. So, to capture the Japanese sense while using the word “but”, I suggest “but since”.
Also, to use “if” in the English translation would be inconsistent with Bunpro’s definitions.
けれども | Japanese Grammar SRS
けれども is the more formal (full version) of the conjunction particle けど. Like けど, it usually carries the meaning of ‘but’, but because of its formality, sounds a bit more like ‘although’, or ‘provided that’. It simply highlights that ‘while thinking about (A), (B)’. Meaning that the (B) phrase is important, or needs to be considered.
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Which word always follows ‘although’ as a sentence starter in English 
.
In saying that though, I will change it to ‘although, if’, as that fits the bill 
For anyone wondering, the team modified the translation to:
“We are planning on going from now, but let’s see the pandas and then go.”
There’s also a note referencing some of the word origin for けれども which helps understand the modern usage. 
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