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I understand this may be a silly question, but I'm currently trying to teach myself Japanese and don't have access to many resources. Am I right in thinking - 私は, 明日街に歩く - means 'I will walk to town tomorrow"? I have not learned about polite forms yet so I am assuming this is just the plain casual form. If it is wrong, would you please be able to show me what I have done wrong?

Finally, does anyone have any idea on what I should do next? I am currently using Tae Kim's Grammar guide, is it worth getting the Genki textbooks and using them as well?

Thank you all for taking the time to read this.

naruto
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user3549805
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1 Answers1

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Unfortunately 私は、明日街に歩く is not grammatical. To say "to walk to the town", some possible options are:

  • 街へ歩く
  • 街まで歩く
  • 街に歩いて行く

Particles に and へ are similar in purpose (both can mark a destination) and actually interchangeable in many cases, but in this case, using に with 歩く is not a natural option. In the last example, I combined 行く using the te-form of 歩く, and 行く can safely take both に and へ without changing the meaning.

Note that questions seeking resources or advice about learning Japanese are off-topic here. But there is a list of resources for learning Japanese in our meta site.

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naruto
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  • 私は明日街を歩く。 -> 'I will walk to town tomorrow"って言いたいみたい(←多分)なので、「町まで歩く」とか「歩いて町に/町まで行く」とかにしてみたらどうでしょう？ – chocolate Aug 21 '16 at 00:50
  • @chocolate あ、見逃してました…＞＜　直します – naruto Aug 21 '16 at 00:50
  • Thanks everyone, I kind of understand but I am still a little confused about why it is wrong. I've been told that に can mark a destination, and an example from Tae Kim's guide is 友達は、来年、日本に行く。Which is translated to 'next year, friend go to Japan'. Is there something wrong with that sentence as well then? Or is it because we are using a different verb instead of the verb 'to walk'? Thank you for the link to the resources. – user3549805 Aug 21 '16 at 08:31
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    @user3549805 According to "A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar" the reason is that に only works with verbs that express movement from one place to another, such as 「いく」,「くる」,「はいる」, and「でる」. Verbs like 「あるく」,「はしる」, and「およぐ」express a manner of movement rather than a movement from one location to another. –  Aug 21 '16 at 15:45
  • @user16343 1. The standard to distinguish"pure motion verbs" and "motion manner verbs" seems unclear to me, since 動く and 移動する also don't necessarily need a direction(e.g., 一歩も動けなかった,遊牧民たちは絶えず移動した). 2. Why can まで be used in "motion manner verbs", where the usage of に and へ are ungrammatical? – Sheepeagle Oct 18 '23 at 09:59