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While translating a song, I've stumbled upon the following sentence:


Which got me wondering what the difference between the following two is:

  1. 落ちた希望を拾って明日に繋いでゆけば

  2. 落ちた希望を拾って明日に繋げば

I have a feeling that the first sentence includes a sense of "doing continually from now" based on what I've read earlier, but I am rather unsure. Is there a possible meaning which I'm missing?

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1 Answer 1

up vote 4 down vote accepted

Just like you say, 繋いでいく has a sense of progression, i.e. the process of "connecting to tomorrow" is intended to be continued (connecting tomorrow to the day after tomorrow, etc.).

The counterpiece to ~ていく is ~てくる, meaning that something has been continued until now.

Some phrases

I have been giving my best (all this time).

Let's have fun (from now onwards).

I don't know of any English construction that would correspond well to this sense of progression from present into the future (～ていく) or from the past into the present (～てきた）.

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I hope you don't mind me asking this here, but I felt it was undeserving of another question. Within the right context, can -いく also mean "to do up until now, and continuing to do", or is the starting point of the action locked to the present? –  Daniel Safari Feb 23 '13 at 22:10
No, it is not locked to the present. The focus is on its continuing into the future. Similarly, ～てきた doesn't mean it has to end in the present. –  Earthliŋ Feb 23 '13 at 22:13

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