Directional verbs "lai" and "qu"
来 (lái) and 去 (qù) are both words that help to express direction with regards to the speaker. 来 (lái) expresses the location direction of the speaker while 去 (qù) expresses location direction away from the speaker. For example, if you are in China, a local person might ask you: "When did you come to China?" using 来 (lái). Another example is if you want to go from China to Japan, your friends might ask you: “When are you going to Japan?" using 去 (qù). Because of this, it is very important to know when to use 来 (lái) and when to use 去 (qù) correctly.
Basic usage
Structure
来/去 + location
Examples
- 妈妈 要 去 超市。 Mom is probably at home. Mom will go to the supermarket.
- 老板 今天 来 公司 吗？The boss is not in the office. Is the boss coming to the office?
- 你 现在 来南京 路 吧。 The speaker is at Nanjing Road. Come to Nanjing Road now.
- 你 不 想 来 我们 公司 工作 吗？ Do you not want to come to work for our company?
- 昨天 我们 去 了 酒吧。 The speaker is not in the bar. We went to the bar yesterday.
- 去年 她 去 美国 工作 了 半年。 She is not in America anymore. Last year she went to work in America for half a year.
- 你们 想 去 Starbucks 还是 Costa？We know that the speaker is not in Starbucks or Costa. Would you like to go to Starbucks or Costa?
- 周末 我 喜欢 去 朋友 家 玩。 The speaker isn't at his friends' place at this moment. I like to go to my friends' place and have fun on weekends.
- 爸爸 明天 去 北京 出差。 Dad is currently not in Beijing. Tomorrow dad will go to Beijing on a business trip.
- 我 今天 不 上班，你们 可以 来 我 家 吃饭 。 The speaker is probably at home. I don't have to go to work today. You can come to my home to eat dinner.
Advanced Usage
来 (lái) and 去 (qù) can both be paired with other verbs to demonstrate the direction an action has taken. For example, 进来 (jìnlái, come in), 进去 (jìnqù, go in), 出来 (chūlái, come out), 出去 (chūqù, go out), 回来 (huílái, come back), 回去 (huíqù, go back), etc. These are called direction complements, and will be covered in detail in a more advanced article.
