相 vs 時制 – Difference between Aspect in Japanese and Tense in English
English verbs use what is called tense (時制、じせい) to tell you if an action happened in the past, present, or future. Japanese verbs use something similar called aspect(アスペクト・相) which tells you if an action is complete or incomplete. Most of the time the difference between aspect in Japanese and tense in English does not matter.
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Difference between Aspects in Japanese and Tense in English
If you have an action that happened in the past, such as “I ate”, it means the same thing as “I completed eating” or have finished eating. So, In Japanese, if we wanted to say “I ate”, “I completed eating” or whatever it would be “食べた”.
https://japaneseuniverse.com/2024/02/18/pac-man-in-japaneseconcepts-behind-development-to-global-icon/
If you have an action that is happening in the future, “I will eat”, or an action that you are doing now, “I am eating”, then this is an incomplete action. In Japanese “食べる” means “I eat” or “I will eat” based on the context.
In short completed tasks are usually tasks in the past, and incompleted tasks are usually those in the present or future.
“た” and “ている” in Japanese
When we want to say an action is completed we add “た”( ta) to the end of the verb. The last syllable on the verb will either change sounds or be removed based on the type of verb, but that is beyond the scope of this post today. You can find more information about verb conjugation in Japanese from the sources at the end of this post.
“ている” (teiru) is added to the end of verbs the same way “た” is and represents a continuation of an action. Most of the time “ている” translates to “-ing” at the end of verbs in English but not always.
Static Verbs do not use “ている” similar to how English does not use “-ing”
For present or continuing processes, static verbs do not use “ている”. A static verb would be any word like, to be, exist, need, be able to, or to have. For the words in English I provided, English also does not use “-ing” to state something in the present.
So, in Japanese, if you want to say I have a question it would be “質問がある” instead of “質問があっている”. This is again the same as in English, you would not say “I am having a question.”
There are differences between specific verbs though. In English, you say “I know his/her name” without “-ing”. The equivalent word in Japanse for know is “知る” and here you actually do use “ている”. To say “I know his/her name” you would say “名前を知っている”.
“死んでいる” Means “dead” not “dying”
Remember that “ている” means a continuation of a state or action and “た” means the completion of an action. So, If you say “死ぬ” than means “to die” or “will die” and “死んだ” means “died”. Again, “ている” represents a continuation of a state so if you say “死んでいる” than means the continuation of the state of being dead.
Any verb that represents a point in time rather than a process will work the same as “死ぬ”. Some other examples of these verbs would be “来る” (come), “行く”(go), “壊れる” (break), and so on.
You can still express Past, Present, and Future in Japanese
Often from the context, it is obvious if the action was in the past or present but sometimes you will need to clarify with other words. So, if you just walk up to someone and say, someone came, “誰かが来たよ” then it means they came and are here now. If you want to say someone came yesterday you could say “昨日誰かが来たよ” (Someone came yesterday).
If you again say “誰かが来るよ” out of context after walking right up to someone then it sounds like someone is coming now. If you want to say someone is coming at a specific time you will need to specify when exactly. So if they are coming tomorrow, “明日誰かが来るよ”. So, If the context does not make it clear you will want to specify the time of the action.
Grammatical Aspect in Japanese is High Context
Whenever you are talking with someone just think about the current situation you are in, and what knowledge you share with the listener and what you don’t share. Like in the example above, if you randomly walk up to someone and say “誰かが来たよ” they are going assume you are talking about just now, not 10 years ago. If you say “出かけてくるよ” (I am going out) they will assume you mean now and not in a week from now.
This sounds obvious but it is easy to get confused when speaking a foreign language. Most mistakes you will make will actually be things you know. If you would like to learn more about Japanese Grammar I have other posts, feel free to check them out.
Vocabulary
食べる （たべる） - to eat
質問 （質問） – question
ある – to have
名前 （なまえ） – name
知る （しる） – to know
死ぬ （しぬ） – to die
来る （くる） – to come
行く （いく） – to go
壊れる （こわれる） – to break
誰か （だれか） – someone
昨日 （きのう） – yesterday
明日 （あした） – tomorrow
出かける （でかける）- to go out
