来る – Kuru is Come most of the time
The Japanese word 来る and the English word come both represent movement toward or close to the speaker. However, these two words don’t always line up exactly. Let’s take a look
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What does 来る mean in Japanese?
Basically, 来る means movement toward the speaker in a sentence. This is the same as the English word come in most situations.
友達がうちに来た
my friend came to my house
The Difference between 来る and Come
In English often when people are talking to each other, they say come when they are actually going away somewhere else.
https://japaneseuniverse.com/2024/02/18/pac-man-in-japaneseconcepts-behind-development-to-global-icon/I would like to come with you
In this situation, the speaker is talking from the point of view of the listener. So for that reason, they are able to use come in English. In Japanese on the other hand you would not be able to use 来る since the direction of movement must always be in the direction of the speaker or direction of someone or something they consider close to them physically or psychologically. In this situation instead, we would use the word for go in Japanese which is 行く.
However, when you want to talk about someone else, you can say 来る even when that person is not coming toward the speaker. That would be when you are talking about a third party heading in the direction of the listener.
バスはもう来ましたか？
Did the bus come yet?
Here, the speaker is asking the listener if the bus has come to where the listener is or not.
