へ行く vs に行く - I find this grammar point to be confusing!

Bunpro
#1

The grammar point for へ行くsays that ‘he’ and ‘ni’ are interchangeable but they have a different nuance to them.

 'ni' has the nuance of 'going to' - it focuses on the destination.
 'he' has the nuance of 'heading to'  - it focuses on the distance traveled.

Then BP follows up with the following two examples to complete their point.

ジョンは学校へ行く。

John is heading to school. [Okay, ‘he’ = heading to.]

エルサは病院に行く。

Elsa is going to the hospital. [Okay, ‘ni’ = going to.]

Everything is great up to here. But then the examples for ‘he’ consistently uses it in the ‘to go to’ sense, e.g.,

image

Followed up with ‘to go to the station’, ‘to go to Tokyo’…and so on.

BP used ‘he’ for all the ‘go to’ examples instead of ‘ni.’ So if the Japanese uses these two interchangeably, why does BP point out this nuance. Furthermore, if BP decided to point out this nuance and followed up with that nuance in its two examples in the ‘About’ section, why didn’t BP use that nuance (‘ni’) in its examples? At least use it in some of the examples to show that either one could be used. But none??? What’s the reasoning behind this?

EDIT:

Out of curiosity, I deliberate used ‘ni’ instead of ‘he’ in the following review and BP gave me the yellow caution to change my answer.

image

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#2

I can see why this is confusing, but both に and へ can be translated as “go to” in the usage of marking a destination. That’s what makes them interchangeable.

Now, what makes them different is that に marks a specific location while へ marks a general destination, as well as the fact that へ focuses on the journey to said destination, which is why it has the nuance of “towards”. Example:

学校に行く。I’m going to school.

学校へ行く。I’m going to school (as in headed towards that direction).

So BunPro translations are not wrong. You just have to keep in mind each particle’s nuance, which I think it’s better to think in terms of specific location vs a general destination and its journey towards it (rather than merely the distance, which I think is a little misleading).

Here’s a video that further explains these two particles:

She speaks Japanese here and there, but she’s literally saying the same thing in English first.

HTH!

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#3

学校へ行く also translates well to ‘I’m off to school’, but I’m not sure how well that works outside of Australian English. へ just focuses more on the travel rather than the destination.

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#4

That works in British English, and also in American (I think, but you don’t hear it as much).

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#5

Thank you for your explanation! I liked the video especially the example of ‘going to Bethlehem’ in which she says that back then it was an arduous trek to get there so ‘he’ is appropriate. But, today, if we hop in a car and drive there then some may use ‘ni’ instead.

Based on her clarification here, then using BP example, if a Japanese student said, ‘I’m going to school in California’ I can readily see the use of ‘he.’ But if that same student is merely going to a neighborhood school, then I would think ‘ni’ is more appropriate.

In all of BP’s examples, I (can now) see where ‘he’ is appropriate for examples like ‘going to Tokyo/Kyoto’ and ‘going to the mountains.’ But, again, for ordinary daily occurrences like ‘going to school/station/classroom’ I, personally, would choose to use ‘ni’ unless additional information was included to use ‘he’ instead.

Thanks again for your help :slight_smile:

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#6

My 2-cents:

If I remember my CureDolly correctly, に indicates the temporospatial primary target of the action.

In 学校に行くyou are moving with the express intention of going to the school for some reason or another, usually explicitly related contextually to the target.

This is why it would also be more natural for に to be used if there was an added specified context related to the target, thus:

明日先生と会議があるから、学校に行く

sounds better than:

明日先生と会議があるから、学校へ行く

You aren’t aimlessly directed toward the school, you are intentionally targeting the school as the destination of your movement for some reason related to the school (the meeting with the teacher)

へ on the other hand is merely a marker for movement toward something.

In 学校へ行くyour reason for going in that direction may not involve the school at all. Nor is the school necessarily your intended destination. For that reason, I feel like へ works best when giving directions, triangulating meeting spots between friends, or in sentences like:

学校へ行きながら、喫茶店でとまった

versus

学校に行きながら、喫茶店でとまった

using に here would strike me as a little off since the rest of the sentence includes context unrelated to the location marked by に.

the classic English way to think about it is “to” vs “toward”

駅に行く: I am going to the station (to catch a train, buy a ticket, some other reason related to the station etc, the station is the primary goal)

駅へ行く: I am going toward the station (because there’s a restaurant I like over there, or I’m talking with a friend over the phone and we’re trying to find each other, the station may or may not be the primary goal)

Others, please correct me if I speak nonsense, but this has been my working understanding of the nuance between these two particles and so far it appears to have held up.

Related to the examples OP mentioned, it does seem like the English hint should use either “toward” or some equivalent variation when it is expecting へ. Especially in short sentences like 教___ it is difficult to chose between へ and に without additional context (e.g, “I go to the classroom to take a test” vs “I go toward the classroom”)

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#7

I’ve noticed this more than once. In the description/definition, Bunpro will explain the difference as two different words, then in the translation use the one that sounds more natural - not the one that matches the definition on the explanation page.

I run into this more often with vocab (the nuance hint helps alot with grammer).
Some I’ve run into is 申すvs言う, 差し上げる vs 上げる sonkeigo 尊敬語 vs tenegeo丁寧語 When it is a grammer point like するvs致す there is a nuance hint that tells you “humble”. I switched these to translation

起こす vs 拾う and 受ける vs 取る vs 盗む these are diffrent words- but there are example sentences where if you just went by the translation- without reading the whole sentence, it’s easy to mix them up. I took a test is 受ける I took break is 取る and someone took my lunch is 盗む. All written with took. ni vs e is one of these.
When I took japanese class my teacher told us to just always use ni, cause it fits more use cases. So I write ni first, then when it is yellow change it.
(I tell my students the same thing about 関係代名詞 “The koala is an animal which lives in Australia” - “that” is always ok)

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#8

Just wanted to mention that 明日に is incorrect. That’s like saying “On Tomorrow” in English. On the other hand, 明日は or simply 明日 is :+1:.

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#9

Thank you! Corrected, I had a feeling but chose to ignore it

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#11

Thank you so much for your explanations - very clear!!!:slight_smile:

Well, no one has disputed what you’ve said thus far, so I’m good with it!
Thanks again!

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#12

YESSSSS! So, I’m NOT the only one having to deal with this! But if I were to post every time I’m confused by their examples, I’d probably get kicked off the site, :frowning:

LOVE IT!!! But based on the examples, I’d be making a LOT of
changes, :frowning:

Come to think of it, in the past (before WK and now BP), I get the feeling I did see ‘ni’ more often than ‘he’ in Duolingo. But not knowing these nuances I didn’t pay any attention to them. I need to look at that more closely now!