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

落ちた希望を拾って明日に繋いでゆけば

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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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

頑張ってきた
I have been giving my best (all this time).

楽しんでいこう
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
    Commented Feb 23, 2013 at 22:10
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    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 ♦
    Commented Feb 23, 2013 at 22:13

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