What 生きていけたら means here?

Question

So I was listening to this song and practing a bit while doing so. When trying to translate this line the results I got so far were:

そう信じてこれから生きていけたらどれだけ素敵なんだろう

So believe me/it, from now on ... how wonderful it is, right?

My problem here is with:

生きていけたら it feels like it is the te form of 生きる + the pothential form and conditional form of some verb which I don't know.

Could it be something like 行けたら? But since it is along with the te form of another verb it is in hiragana instead of kanji.

Thanks in Advance, if any other points in my sentence or logic are wrong, please help me.

Answer 1

You're right - it's the て form of 生きる、生きて, plus いく, "go", in its potential form いける plus the conditional suffix たら . 生きていく means "live into the future", "go on with my life". So そう信じてこれから生きていけたら means "If I could go on with my life from now on believing that (how wonderful it would be)". くる , "come" and いく , "go", are often used after the て form of a verb (but not nowadays written with kanji because they are auxiliaries, not full verbs) to indicate that an action proceeds towards or away from the location of the speaker - in space or time. When it's space it's straightforward: 入っていった , "he went in" (speaker is outside) vs 入ってきた, "he came in" (speaker is inside); 帰っていった "she went home" (after our date: boyfriend is speaking) vs 帰ってきた "she came home" (after her date: mother is speaking). When it's a matter of time, it's perhaps not quite so obvious. Consider: 19世紀の半ばごろから発達してきている "It has been developing since about the mid-19th century" [from the past towards the present moment] vs これから早く発達していくだろう "It will probably proceed to develop quickly from now on" [away from the present moment]".

Answer 2

V〜ていく comes from 行く as you assumed and means that you continue on doing the prefixed verb. In this case, 生きていけたら, means something like "if (I) continue on living". It is common for this kind of suffixed compounded verbs to be written in hiragana. Another example is the ending V〜てみる where みる comes from 見る, and change the meaning to "attempt V".

As for your translation, it is off.

そう信じてこれから生きていけたらどれだけ素敵なんだろう
How wonderful isn't it if (I) can continue on (living and) believing that

The first part, そう信じて, refers to the an act of the subject, "Believing that". It is combined in the simple way using て form with the following parts of the sentence. For your interpretation to make sense, there would have to be some kind of break in between そう信じて and これから, such that they are two different sentences. In that case 信じて might refer to the imperative form instead.

*Note: I put "I" in paranthesis since it isn't clear from the sentence who the subject is