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I saw the construction

～て〇〇年／〇〇か月になります

and it looks strange to me. Here is my question: does this construction mean that the action continues until now?

For example:

この 会社に 入って １０ 年に なります。

My teacher said that this sentence means:

I started working 10 years ago, and have worked until now.

Is this correct?

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～て○年/か月 refers to either "the continuation of the result of a past action" or "a habitual action".

"A社に入って5年です" usually means you are still working at A社 (continuation of the result of 入る). This is different from plain past "5年前にA社に入りました", which implies nothing about your current situation. In English, the former is like "It has been 5 years since X happened" and the latter is like "X happened 5 years ago." Similar examples include:

  • この町で暮らし始めて半年です。
    (implies you are still living in this town)
  • 彼が亡くなって、今日で2年になります。

In addition, the same construction can express a habitual action that has been repeated for some time ("to have been ～ing for ～").

  • 毎日サッカーの練習をして2年になる。
  • スライム倒して300年、知らないうちにレベルMAXになってました (title of this novel)
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This type of grammatical construction is fairly common. However, your teacher was paraphrasing a bit.

会社に入る: To join a company

～になります: なる has many English translations. While 'to become' is the principal one provided, to get; to grow; to be; to reach; to attain are also valid translations depending on context.

Due to the use of the imperfect tense (generally used for present and future in English), 10年になります in the example sentence is indicating that the person is in their 10th year with the company, but not necessarily that 10 full years have passed.

The word for since (から) is omitted from your sentence example, but is implied. Following are a few example sentences (taken from here) with ～になります, some omitting particles and some not:

「彼が死んでから十年になります。」'It's been 10 years since he died.'
「彼が日本に来て３年になります。」'It's been 3 years since he came to Japan.'
「私は来月16歳になります。」'I'll be 16 (years old) next month.'
「私がここに来てから１０年になります。」'It'll have been 10 years since I came here.'
「今度の4月で、私たちはここに2年住んでいることになります。」'This April, we will have been living here for 2 years.'
「私たちは来年で英語を５年間学んだ事になります。」'As of next year, we will have learned English for 5 years.'

Finally, the more literal translation I would give for the sentence in your example is:
'It will be 10 years since I joined the company.'
More colloquially:
'I've been with the company for 10 years.'

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  • 'It will be 10 years since I joined the company.' More colloquially: 'I've been with the company for 10 years.' this two sentences are not same, second says what i have worked for 10 year, first says the same information, but we dont know when it will be "this 10 year", am i wrong?
    – Sam Kazantsev
    Commented Feb 21, 2019 at 20:41
  • Sorry, I could have been more explicit. The implication is that the 10 year (anniversary) has not happened yet, but the person may be rounding up or rounding down. If there is no preface, such as 'In January', it might be better to assume that it has been 10 years 'give-or-take'.
    – BJCUAI
    Commented Feb 21, 2019 at 21:26
  • If you copied some of the example sentences, please include the source.
    – Earthliŋ ♦
    Commented Feb 21, 2019 at 21:29
  • @Earthliŋ Whoops. Added source reference.
    – BJCUAI
    Commented Feb 21, 2019 at 21:34
  • it has been almost 10 years since I joined the companyと言ってみたら、「この会社に入ってもうすぐ10年になります」と言えばいいということですか。
    – lightweaver
    Commented Feb 22, 2019 at 3:11

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