That would be, I am on the plane, currently in the act of going to Oregon

I am going (in a month) or I am about to go/will go is just 行きます.

Yeah, dude’s impossible to knock out.

That’s a good point, I’m still a bit confused by this too. JPod 101 brings it up every now and again, ている can be translated as present progressive, or a continuing state depending on the context. For example; けっこんしている can mean ‘in the process of getting married’, or ‘in the state of being married’ (but I’ve never seen the てある form that Tae Kim’s guide says is for resultant states).

So could 行っている be used for both; ‘in the act of going’, and ‘in the state of being gone’?

Edit: I guess I have seen てある, but didn’t recognise it at the time.

• This reply was modified 11 years, 1 month ago by  Astralfox. Reason: てある

Haven’t felt the need, so far. Also, I forgot I’d intended to respond. =P

Basically, there’s two different types of verbs, the fancy names of which I’ve forgotten at the moment, but for the purposes of this post I’ll call “continual verbs” and “state verbs”. Continual verbs are things that happen over a period of time, or that take time to do, but tend to not leave an immediate obvious change, like running, eating, studying, et cetera – for these verbs, ている means “in the middle of doing it”.

State verbs are things that happen once, and in doing so change the state of the doer (or doee) – for example, getting married, dying, going somewhere. For these verbs, ている means “is now in the state of having done it”.

The trick is that it can sometimes be difficult to tell which is which. For example, 乗っている (“I’m riding [a train]“) looks like a continual verb, but it’s actually a state verb (“I’m in a state of having boarded the train”). Coming and going can take time, but since they result in a change of state, they’re state verbs, not continual verbs.

I haven’t got my grammar dictionary on me at the moment, but I’m inclined to say that Koichi’s usage in the example sentence is wrong.

Thanks, I feel like I’m a little closer to comprehension.

One of the comments on the Tae Kim page says that the ‘enduring state of being’ and ’enduring state of action’ verbs are decided by whether they are intransitive or transitive respectively. That sems to make sense, but is it really so clear-cut I wonder?