日: 2026年7月20日

We have learned some usages of “[V-te] iru/imasu”. Action ongoing is introduced in the section 14, continuing/sustained action is in the section 15, repetitive actions in the section 28, and remaining of action result in the section 29. These are introduced basically in the forms of positive sentences. But today’s sentence construction is a negative “V-te iru”, that is, “V-te inai” for short ending style and “V-te imasen” as “Desu-masu” style.

As was indicated in A2, using “V-te iru” makes an instantaneous action a stative situation. This is a direct explanation of the usage of “V-te iru” for continuing/sustained action. As for “V-te inai”, it is the negative form of “V-te iru”, and describes the situation continues in which something has not been done.

Suppose now the time is 10a.m. It’s late morning hour, but too early for lunch.

– Question : Asa-gohan o Tabe mashitaka. (Did you eat your breakfast?)

– WRONG Answer : Iie, Tabemasen. (No, I am not going to eat (breakfast).)

– RIGHT Answer : Iie, Mada Tabe———————-. (No, I haven’t eaten yet.)

You can tell why the wrong answer is wrong through the English translation. But how do you fill the brank for the right answer? Before showing how to fill the brank, let me tell you about the adverb “Mada”.

– Mada ; Adverb ; not yet (for negative expression), still (for positive expression).

There are two meanings for this “Mada”, but memorize the negative one. Usually sentence having “Mada” ends with negative ending like “-nai.” or “-masen.”. So, put in your mind as “Mada <Naninani> Nai.” so that you can remember the corresponding to the sentence end. In addition, there is a similar adverb in respect of pronunciation.

 Mada <=> Mata ; again

If it is difficult for a learner to pronounce differently voiced plosive “d” and voiceless plosive “t”, Mada and Mata can be confusing.

Let us return to today’s sentence construction “V-te imasen”. The answer of the conversation above is as below;

A : Asa-gohan o Tabe mashitaka. (Did you eat your breakfast?)

B : Iie, Mada Tabete imasen. (No, I haven’t eaten yet.)

People eat their breakfast at their convenient time in the morning. Time is just up to each person, probably it would range from 6a.m. to 9a.m., or so. For the person B, his/her situation “having not eaten breakfast” continues through the time range for breakfast and now it’s 10 a.m. Taking consideration about continuous state of “having not eaten breakfast”, the person B uses the negative version of “V-te imasu”, which is “V-te imasen.”

Above conversation is thought to happen at 10a.m. Therefore time ranges is considered, and results in using “V-te imasen.” Then if the conversation happens at 8p.m. in the night, how the person B is going to answer?

A : Kyou no Asa, gohan o Tabe mashitaka. (Did you eat your breakfast this morning?)

B : Iie, Tabemasen deshita. (No, I didn’t eat the breakfast.)

Actually, answering “Iie, Tabete imasen.” is still okay, though “mada” should be eliminated. If saying at 8p.m. “Iie, Asagohan wa Tabete imasen.”, it would be the usage of “V-te iru” expressing “experience that affects present somehow”. But this usage is not essential for learners of beginners’ level. The important thing is, at 8p.m, “Breakfast eating time” has lost its time range, and become a point of time in the past. Therefore, the answer usually would be “Tabemasen deshita” that is the sentence ending for “past-negative”.

Learning the negative version of “V-te iru/imasu” that is “V-te inai/imasen” is important. But the main purpose of the section 31 is to learn how to express your will. Doesn’t it seem “V-te inai” has little to do with a will? I guess, probably the writers of Minna no Nihongo intended to make a short discourse like below;

– Ashita ga Repo’oto no Shimekiri desu. (The deadline of report is tomorrow.)

– Demo, Watashi wa Mada Repo’oto o Kaite imasen. (But I haven’t written the report yet.)

– Kyou no Yoru, Repo’oto o Kakou to Omotte imasu. (I am thinking about writing the report tonight.)

As you see, the second sentence is of today’s sentence construction, and the third yesterdays.

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This post was written with reference to the exercise A4 on Section31 of “Minna no Nihongo (2nd Edition)” published by “3A Corporation”