nihongo wo benkyou shitai

日本語：	[verb (base 6)] くる
English:	Come to (a point)..., Continue...

Today's grammar point is a nice simple one, at least grammatically. As we know, the verb 来る means to come and is something we've been using since our first year studies. However, it can also act as an auxiliary verb and in such instances it can take on the following meanings:

1. To go and do something, and then return
   
2. To reach a point where some state is achieved
   
3. To continue some action that has been ongoing
   
4. If the attached verb is a motion verb, the motion is towards the speaker
   
5. The appearance of an object or the occurrence of some action
   

I took the above list off JapanesePod101, but in a general Google search, a lot of these meanings don't show up. Looking in my JLPT study guide, it only lists two of these meanings and so, whilst it's worthwhile remembering all five exist, points 2 and 3 are the ones listed in the JLPT specification.

The second point above uses くる in it's more abstract form to indicate that some point in a state or action has been reached; in other words, you've come to some point in that action. For example, after years of study you feel you have arrived at the point where you can confidently take the exam. The JLPT study guide describes this use as a change that takes place over time and the inference is that the point where the change is complete has been reached.

The third point is to indicate that the described action is an ongoing state. Quite how this is different to ている I do not know and my JLPT grammar book even uses ている in the example sentence for this point, so I have no idea what's going on.

The good news is that in terms of the usage I keep seeing, てくる normally takes on the meaning of either go and come back or reached the point where, both of which are nice and simple.

手作りの例文を見ましょう・・・

English:	He's reached the point where he can take the exam.
Jenglish:	[he] [exam] [take + come to the point]
日本語：	彼は試験を受けてきます。

English:	After the meeting I understood their concerns.
Jenglish:	[meeting] [after] [concerns] [understood + come to the point]
日本語：	会議の後で関心事をわかってきました。

English:	I'm going to take pictures of the sunset (but I'll be back).
Jenglish:	[sunset] [of] [pictures] [take]
日本語：	日を入りの写真を撮ってきます。

じゃぁ・・・インタネットで調べましょう！

１番目の例文：

この例文はこのサイトを見つかる。

日本語：	上司に連れられてキャバクラ行ってきた
Jenglish:	[boss] [take a person (potential/passive] [cabaret club] [went (and came back)]

On the whole, the vocabulary wasn't much of an issue here. The only area where confusion may crop up is whether we have a potential or passive verb. The clue is the use of に which indicates 'who made someone do something' in passive sentences. My guess here is that the subject is missing from the sentence and is the speaker. So, my translation is My boss took me to a cabaret club with a hint that the speaker wasn't too happy about it.


２番目の例文：

この例文はここで見つかる。

日本語：	そこでiPhoneパーティーでもおなじみ、キャスタリアの山脇さんにiPhoneをお借りして、New Yorkで10日間使ってきた。
Jenglish:	[so] [iPhone] [party] [but, however, still] [well-known, familiar], [??] [Mr. Yamawaki] [NI] [iPhone] [borrowing/use] [New York] [DE] [10 hours] [use + continue]

Lots of vocabulary I didn't know here,and the grammar is confusing, but let's make a start with what we can understand. I'm assuming that "New Yorkで" is where whatever is being talked about is happening as で can indicate the location of an action. That gives us "iPhoneをお借りして、10日間使ってきた" which raises the question as to what お借りして means. 借り is the noun form of 'to borrow' or 'to use temporarily' and the お at the start would indicate some kind of honourific/humble statement, so I am guessing お借りする is an humble form 'to borrow' or 'to use', which is conjugated to show some following action, in this case 10日間使ってきた. Given the context, I think the use here of today's grammar point indicates continued action. So far, then, we have used an iPhone in New York and continued to use it for 10 hours. Now we're getting somewhere.

Next up is キャスタリアの山脇さんに. I've no idea what キャスタリア is, but it is followed by the possessive particle and a name, so it's Mr. Yamawaki's something. This is all followed by に. に can mean many things, including passive and causative actions, but from the verb conjugation, there is no indication of either passive or causative. So に may be indicating the recipient of an action or the location of an action.

Next, we have 'そこでiPhoneパーティーでもおなじみ'. そこで means 'accordingly' and given that this sentence is a lead-on from a previous paragraph in the article, I'm happy with that. iPhoneパーティー should be obvious, but I'm guessing we don't mean a real party, but instead something like 'story' or 'hype'. It's followed by でも. We covered this grammar point before and saw that after a noun it can mean even if or even. The final word, おなじみ, means 'familiar' or 'well-known'.

Well, overall, I'm not very confident on this, but my translation is: Accordingly, even if the iPhone hype is well-known, I used an iPhone in New York at Mr Yamawaki's ??? and continued to use for 10 hours.

またね・・・