A2
Directional complements — 来 and 去
How 来 and 去 attach to verbs in Chinese to say which way the movement goes, why the choice is made from the speaker’s position, and where the object sits in a compound.
来 and 去 attach to a movement verb and say which way it went — 来 towards the speaker, 去 away from them. The pair is not about the map. It is about where you are.
请进来。
Qǐng jìnlai.
Come in.
他出去了。
Tā chūqu le.
He’s gone out.
我回来了。
Wǒ huílai le.
I’m back.
Both are toneless in this position.
请进去。
请进来。
Said at your own front door, 请进去 tells your guest to go into somewhere you are not. It is grammatical, which is what makes it easy to say and confusing to hear.
The set
上, 下, 进, 出, 回, 过, 起 combine with 来 and 去 to give the directions:
- 上来 / 上去 — up, towards / away
- 下来 / 下去 — down
- 进来 / 进去 — in
- 出来 / 出去 — out
- 回来 / 回去 — back
- 过来 / 过去 — over
起来 has no 起去 partner, and it is the one you will meet most often in a figurative sense — 站起来 stand up, but also 听起来 sounds like, 想起来 remember.
Attached to another verb
Any verb of movement can take the whole direction as a unit, which is where they start doing real work.
他跑出去了。
Tā pǎo chūqu le.
He ran out.
她走进来了。
Tā zǒu jìnlai le.
She walked in.
English needs a verb and a particle for this — ran out, walked in — and Chinese builds it the same way, which makes this one of the friendlier corners of the grammar.
Where the object goes
With a compound direction, a place normally sits between the two halves, before 来 or 去.
他走进房间来了。
Tā zǒujìn fángjiān lai le.
He walked into the room.
他拿出一本书来。
Tā náchū yì běn shū lai.
He took out a book.
Putting the object after the whole thing — 他拿出来一本书 — is also said and is perfectly normal in speech. Both are fine; the split version reads as slightly more careful.
Where you are, not where things are
The rule that keeps catching people: 去 and 来 are chosen from the speaker’s position at the moment of speaking, including on the phone.
我明天去你家。
Wǒ míngtiān qù nǐ jiā.
I’ll come to yours tomorrow.
English says come to yours, taking the listener’s side. Chinese says 去, because the speaker is not there. Getting this backwards is the single most common mistake in the pair.