The ～てくる / ～ていく Form in Japanese: Directional and Temporal Movement

The difference between てくる and ていく comes down to one question: is the movement toward the speaker's here-and-now, or away from it? Both use the same te-form construction, built on the motion verbs 来る ("come") and 行く ("go"). They run across three layers of meaning: spatial movement, temporal unfolding, and gradual change.¹²³

Overview

These two auxiliaries look like simple add-ons to the te-form. But they encode a single idea borrowed from how 来る and 行く already work as standalone verbs. Master that one idea, and every later use follows from it.

What these forms are

Both forms attach the lexical motion verb 来る ("come") or 行く ("go"), now working as a 補助動詞 (auxiliary or supplementary verb), to the te-form of a main verb: Vて + くる, Vて + いく.²³⁴

In this auxiliary role, the verb has lost its syntactic independence and become grammaticalized. Shimizu describes the 「動詞＋てくる」 form as having undergone 文法化 ("grammaticalization"), a meaning change that includes loss of syntactic independence.¹

Because the auxiliary is grammaticalized, it is conventionally written in kana (ていく, てくる), not in kanji (て行く, て来る). The 文化審議会 (Council for Cultural Affairs) government guideline lists「～（し）て行く→ていく」and「～（し）て来る→てくる」among supplementary verb uses written in kana.⁵

Full lexical 行く / 来る keep their kanji; the kana-spelling rule and its one practical contrast are covered under "Good to know."

These two belong to the family of te-form auxiliaries alongside ている, てある, ておく, and てしまう. On the aspect map, they are the directional and aspectual entries built on motion verbs.⁴ Both are everyday N4 grammar, standard in speech and writing alike.²³ The polite forms are ～てきます and ～ていきます.⁴

The single organizing idea: the deictic center

来る and 行く are deictic motion verbs. A deictic expression takes its meaning from a reference point. For these verbs, that point is the deictic center: prototypically the speaker's here-and-now. Shimizu defines 来る as a deictic expression for the movement of a person or thing toward the speaker's domain. He notes that for motion approaching the speaker's domain, 来る is obligatory and 行く cannot be used.¹

The choice between them is therefore not arbitrary. Motion or change oriented toward the deictic center selects くる. Motion or change oriented away from it selects いく.¹⁶ Shibatani's account of Japanese directional verbs is the standard reference for treating 来る / 行く as deictic verbs whose orientation is fixed relative to the speaker.¹⁶

バスが来きた。¹
"The bus came (toward me / to where I am)."

太郎たろうが（うちに）来きた。¹
"Tarō came (to my place)."

This single frame explains all the later layers. Shimizu makes the temporal extension explicit: the aspectual てくる rests on the metaphor of time as something that moves toward the speaker. In other words, the spatial deictic center is reused as a temporal one.¹

One image behind everything that follows

くる points at the speaker's now. いく points away from it. Spatial movement, temporal unfolding, and gradual change are all this one contrast applied to different axes.¹

Form and conjugation

The construction is mechanically simple: finish the te-form, then append the auxiliary. Only the auxiliary inflects.

Attaching to the te-form

Formation is verb te-form + くる, or verb te-form + いく.²³⁴ The te-form itself is built by the usual rules, covered in the te-form construction article. These auxiliaries simply append to the finished te-form.

The で-variant comes from the te-form, not from くる/いく. A verb whose plain te-form is voiced keeps the で and appends くる/いく (飲んで → 飲んでくる, 遊んで → 遊んでいく).⁴

ポチがボールをくわえて、走はしってきた。⁷
"Pochi came running with the ball in his mouth."

鳥とりが飛とんでいく。³
"The birds fly away."

Conjugating the auxiliary

くる is irregular: nonpast くる, past きた, negative こない, te-form きて, and polite ～てきます.²⁴ いく is a 五段 (godan or u-verb): nonpast いく, past いった, negative いかない, te-form いって, and polite ～ていきます.³⁴

The te-form in front of the auxiliary never changes; only the auxiliary inflects.⁴

Auxiliary	Nonpast	Past	Negative	Te-form	Polite nonpast
くる (toward)	～てくる	～てきた	～てこない	～てきて	～てきます24
いく (away)	～ていく	～ていった	～ていかない	～ていって	～ていきます34

The one cell that trips learners is the past of いく. Because 行く is the 五段 verb that takes the って sound change, the past is ～ていった, not a regularized form. Wasabi flags ていった as the past that is "not regular."⁴

すぐ帰かえってくるね。²
"I'll come right back, okay?"

２月がつから暑あつくなっていった。⁴
"From February on, it went on getting hotter."

The casual reductions

In casual speech, ～ていく reduces to ～てく, with the い dropping (持っていく → 持ってく, やっていく → やってく).³ This reduction is colloquial only. In neutral or written contexts, use the full ～ていく or ～ていきます.³

～てくる does not reduce the same way. The contraction is specific to the いく side.³

傘かさ、持もってくね。³
"I'll take an umbrella (with me), then."

The three layers of meaning

The deictic center stays constant across all four sections below. What changes is the axis it sits on. Layer 1 puts it in physical space, Layer 3 puts it in time, and Layer 4 puts it on a scale of change.

Layer 1: Spatial movement toward or away from the speaker

This is literal motion along a space axis, with the deictic center as a physical location. 歩いてくる is walking toward the speaker. 歩いていく is walking away.¹⁴ Shimizu's first listed sense of Vてくる is exactly this direction-of-movement reading.¹

てくる also carries a round-trip reading: the action is done elsewhere, and the subject returns to the deictic center. Shimizu records 太郎が東京で遊んできた ("Tarō went and had fun in Tokyo and came back").¹ Everyday cases are 買ってくる ("go buy it and bring it back") and 行ってくる ("I'm off, and will return").⁴

知しらない男おとこが、私わたしのほうへ走はしってきた。⁷
"A man I didn't know came running toward me."

トイレに行いってきます。²
"I'll go to the bathroom and come back."

太郎たろうが東京とうきょうで遊あそんできた。¹
"Tarō went and had a good time in Tokyo (and came back)."

Layer 2: Lexicalized motion compounds 持ってくる, 連れてくる

The same deixis applies to carrying and leading. 持ってくる brings an object toward the speaker. 持っていく takes an object away. 連れてくる brings a person here. 連れていく takes a person away.³⁴ These are high-frequency, near-fixed pairings. They are where English "bring" versus "take" maps cleanly onto the deictic contrast.

Bunpro lists お弁当を持ってきてください ("Please bring a bento with you") on the てくる page and これを先生に持っていってください ("Please take this to the teacher") on the ていく page. Together, they show that the bring/take split is the deictic contrast applied to 持つ.²³

お弁当べんとうを持もってきてください。²
"Please bring a boxed lunch (with you)."

これを先生せんせいに持もっていってください。³
"Please take this to the teacher."

山田やまださんの荷物にもつ、持もってきましたよ。⁷
"I've brought Yamada-san's luggage (here to you)."

Layer 3: A process unfolding across time

Here the space axis is replaced by a time axis, with the present moment as the deictic center. てきた marks a process that started in the past and continued up to the present (生きてきた, 続けてきた, 守ってきた). ていく marks a process that starts now and continues into the future (生きていく, 続けていく).¹²³⁸ Bunpro glosses てくる as "has been ~ing" for exactly this past-to-now reading.²

Shimizu names this the 継続アスペクト (continuative aspect) sense of Vてくる. His example is わたしはこの学校の伝統を守ってきた ("I have upheld this school's traditions up to now").¹

私わたしはこの学校がっこうの伝統でんとうを守まもってきた。¹
"I have upheld this school's traditions (up to now)."

この世界せかいのありさまはますます変かわっていくでしょう。⁹
"The state of this world will go on changing more and more."

これから日本語にほんごを勉強べんきょうしていく。⁴
"From here on, I'll keep studying Japanese."

jn1et notes a textbook heuristic: use てきた for past matters and ていく for the future. It also cautions that this is not absolute.⁸

Layer 4: Gradual change and becoming

With change-of-state verbs (often 〜くなる or 〜になる) and adverbs like だんだん or 次第に, てくる marks change building up to the present. ていく marks change continuing into the future. 寒くなってきた is "it has been getting cold up to now." 寒くなっていく is "it will keep getting colder."⁸⁹

Shimizu analyzes the てくる side as 始動アスペクト (inceptive aspect), with 空が明るくなってきた ("the sky has begun to brighten").¹ He argues that the decisive factor is the speaker's perception: they perceive the change as an external shift not tied to their own will, with time conceptualized as moving toward them.¹

だんだん寒さむくなってきましたね。⁷
"It's been getting colder and colder, hasn't it?"

体重たいじゅうがどんどん増ふえていきそうです。⁹
"My weight looks like it'll keep going up."

空そらがだんだん明あかるくなってきた。¹
"The sky has gradually grown bright."

This ties straight back to the deictic center. 寒くなってくる is the change arriving at the speaker's now; 寒くなっていく is the change receding into the future.⁸⁹

The emergence subtype: things coming into awareness

A subset of てくる-only verbs reports perception or understanding emerging toward the speaker: 見えてくる (comes into view), 聞こえてくる (becomes audible), わかってくる (comes to be understood).⁸⁹

新幹線しんかんせんから富士山ふじさんが見みえてきました。⁹
"Mt. Fuji came into view from the bullet train."

日ひが昇のぼるにつれて、徐々じょじょに地平線ちへいせんが見みえてきました。⁹
"As the sun rose, the horizon gradually came into view."

These resist a natural ていく counterpart, and the deictic model explains why. The emergence reading depends on the speaker perceiving the change. Events are modeled as moving toward the front of the observer. Perception is inherently directed toward the deictic center, so the sense is built on くる, not いく.¹ jn1et states directly that verbs like わかってくる only take てくる.⁸

先生せんせいの話はなしを聞きいてわかってきた。⁸
"Listening to the teacher, I came to understand."

Why there is no わかっていく

Understanding cannot recede away from you as it forms; it can only arrive. That is why the emergence verbs pair with くる and have no everyday ていく partner.¹⁸

Nuance and usage contexts

With the four layers in place, the practical question is how to pick the right one in the moment. The next sections give one diagnostic. They also reconcile the popular "start versus end" framing with the deictic model.

Choosing てくる vs ていく: the decision question

One diagnostic resolves all four layers: does the action or change arrive at, or build toward, the speaker's now (→ てくる)? Or does it depart from, or continue past, it (→ ていく)?¹⁸⁹ This is the spatial deictic center reused on the time axis through the metaphor of time moving toward the speaker.¹⁶

Bunpro frames the tense split the same way: past-tense てきた reports something that has already come to pass. ていく indicates progression away from current circumstances.²³

お酒さけを飲のむと顔かおが赤あかくなってくる。⁸
"When I drink, my face starts to go red."

Start-point vs end-point focus

A well-attested framing says ていく foregrounds the start of a process and its forward trajectory, while てくる foregrounds the arrival at the present. LTL puts it as てくる emphasizing changes up to now and ていく emphasizing changes continuing into the future.⁹

This is not a separate rule. It is the deictic model seen from the edges of the process. The endpoint てくる foregrounds is the deictic center: the now the change reaches. The start ていく foregrounds is the now the change departs from.¹⁹ Shimizu's account makes the link explicit, deriving the aspectual readings from the spatial deixis of 来る.¹

これから暑あつくなっていきます。⁹
"It'll get hotter from here on."

Register and frequency

Both auxiliaries are core everyday N4 grammar in speech and writing.²³ The ～てく reduction of ～ていく is casual-speech only.³

The temporal and life-arc uses carry emotional weight and are common in narration and lyrics: 生きてきた ("have lived up to now"), 生きていく ("will go on living"), and the receding 死んでいく, which frames death as a fading away into the future.⁸ These uses are the time-axis extension of the same forms covered above.

子こどもは親おやに叱しかられて悪わるい事ことといい事ことを学まなんでいく。⁸
"Children go on learning right from wrong by being scolded by their parents."

Good to know

Why the auxiliary is written in kana

The grammaticalized auxiliary loses its kanji. The 文化審議会 government guideline「公用文作成の考え方」("Principles for Writing Official Documents") lists「～（し）て行く→ていく」and「～（し）て来る→てくる」(along with ～ていただく, ～てくださる, ～てみる) among supplementary verb uses written in kana rather than kanji.⁵

The same guideline notes that when these verbs express an actual physical action, they keep their kanji, as in「街へ行く」and「東から来る」.⁵ So 買って来る (came in order to buy, literal motion) versus 買ってくる (go and bring back, auxiliary) is a genuine spelling contrast.

This is why editorial style writes 寒くなってくる and 進んでいく in kana: the motion verb's literal meaning has faded into a supplementary one. 環文研, summarizing 文化庁国語課 (Agency for Cultural Affairs, Japanese Language Division) guidance, gives those same two as model auxiliary-kana cases.¹⁰

The いく → いった trap

The past of ～ていく is ～ていった, not a regularized form. A learner who over-regularizes the 五段 past as if it took -ita produces a wrong form. The correct past is ～ていった.

荷物にもつを持もっていった。³
"I took the luggage (with me)."

行く is the 五段 verb whose past undergoes the く → って sound change (行く → 行った), so the auxiliary follows: 持っていく → 持っていった.³⁴ Because 来る contrasts cleanly (くる → きた), learners expect a parallel. But いく is irregular among く-verbs in taking って, not いた. Wasabi flags ていった as the "not regular" past.⁴

Mnemonic for direction

くる ("come") points at the speaker's here-and-now. いく ("go") points away from it. The temporal axis is just the spatial axis tipped on its side: a change that reaches your present is てくる, and a change that leaves your present for the future is ていく.¹⁹

This ties spatial movement, temporal unfolding, and gradual change to one image. It matches Shimizu's metaphor of time as something moving toward the speaker.¹ It also hooks onto the start-versus-end framing: てくる lands on "now," and ていく launches from it.⁹

Not every て-form + come/go is this grammar

When 来る/行く keep their full lexical motion force after a genuinely sequential te-form, they are two separate verbs, not the auxiliary. The auxiliary is one grammaticalized unit written in kana (持ってくる, "bring it here"). A sequential pair stays in kanji (荷物を持って、来る, "pick up the luggage, and then come").⁵⁴

The government guideline draws exactly this line: kanji for an actual action, kana for the supplementary use.⁵ Only the grammaticalized, kana-spelled auxiliary is the てくる/ていく of this article.⁵¹

See also

• ～始める, ～終わる, ～続ける in Japanese: Beginning, Ending, and Continuing an Action
• ～につれて / ～にしたがって: As X Progresses
• The Te-Form Benefactive: 〜てあげる, 〜てくれる, 〜てもらう
• Japanese Giving and Receiving Verbs: あげる, くれる, もらう
• Tense, Aspect, and Mood in Japanese: A Map
• The Te-Form in Japanese: Uses (Linking, Cause, Light Imperative, Continuation)

References

Footnotes

1. 清水啓子 (Shimizu, Keiko).「日本語「動詞＋てくる」構文の逆行態用法について」.『熊本県立大学文学部紀要』(Bulletin of the Faculty of Letters, Prefectural University of Kumamoto), 第16巻, 2010, pp. 47–75. https://www.pu-kumamoto.ac.jp/users_site/tosho/file/pdf/kb/16/1604.pdf ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵ ↩¹⁶ ↩¹⁷ ↩¹⁸ ↩¹⁹ ↩²⁰ ↩²¹ ↩²² ↩²³ ↩²⁴ ↩²⁵ ↩²⁶ ↩²⁷ ↩²⁸

2. Bunpro. Grammar point「てくる」(JLPT N4). https://bunpro.jp/grammar_points/%E3%81%A6%E3%81%8F%E3%82%8B ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴

3. Bunpro. Grammar point「ていく」(JLPT N4). https://bunpro.jp/grammar_points/%E3%81%A6%E3%81%84%E3%81%8F ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵ ↩¹⁶ ↩¹⁷ ↩¹⁸ ↩¹⁹ ↩²⁰

4. Wasabi (wasabi-jpn.com). "Helping Verbs: …ていく and …てくる." https://wasabi-jpn.com/magazine/japanese-grammar/helping-verbs/ ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵ ↩¹⁶ ↩¹⁷ ↩¹⁸ ↩¹⁹

5. 文化審議会 (Council for Cultural Affairs).「公用文作成の考え方（建議）」. 文化庁, 2022. Section Ⅰ-1-(3)「常用漢字表に使える漢字があっても仮名で書く場合」, item ア「動詞・形容詞などの補助的な用法」. https://www.bunka.go.jp/seisaku/bunkashingikai/kokugo/hokoku/pdf/93651301_01.pdf ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶

6. Shibatani, Masayoshi. "Directional verbs in Japanese." In Motion, Direction, and Location in Language: In Honor of Zygmunt Frajzyngier, ed. by Erin Shay and Uwe Seibert. John Benjamins, 2003, pp. 259–285. (Cited as a reference within Shimizu 2010¹; used here only for the deictic-verb framing it is credited with.) ↩ ↩² ↩³

7. 日本語NET (nihongokyoshi-net.com).「【JLPT N4】文法・例文：Vてくる（変化・移動）」. https://nihongokyoshi-net.com/2018/09/26/jlptn4-grammar-tekuru-change/ ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

8. 日本語教師のN1et (jn1et.com).「JLPT文法解説：ていく てくる N4」. https://jn1et.com/teiku-tekuru/ ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹²

9. LTL Japanese. "Expressing Gradual Change in Japanese || Using てくる & ていく." https://ltl-japanese.com/grammar-bank/expressing-gradual-change/ ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³

10. 環文研 / イカリホールディングス (kanbunken.org).「補助動詞の書き方」, summarizing 文化庁国語課 guidance (author credited as 主任国語調査官 武田康宏). https://www.kanbunken.org/daily/240422/ ↩