LEARN + JAPANESE / Note 85 JLPT N4

Left That Way (〜てある)

てある attaches to a transitive verb’s て-form to describe a state that someone deliberately set up and left that way. It always needs a transitive verb, one that takes a direct object, since the whole point is that a person did this on purpose.

In Real Life
The subject takes は or が, never を, even though a verb like 作る is normally transitive and would take を on its object. Once てある is attached, the sentence shifts focus from the action to the resulting state, and the thing affected becomes the topic, not the object.
In Real Life
てある and ている can both describe a resulting state, but てある always implies someone’s intention behind it, while ている with an intransitive verb just describes what’s true, no one’s purpose involved. 窓が開いている just says the window is open, maybe the wind did it. 窓が開けてある says someone opened it on purpose and left it that way.

Vocabulary

JapaneseEnglish