It’s not perfectly 1 to 1, but maybe think of it as it “came to be dark”?
Like, the “come” in this sentence isn’t describing any physical motion. Just the end result of the verb
It could be easier to understand In the temporal domain.
Past ->てきました->Now->ていきます->Future
てきました: from past, it has become xxx now. ていきます: from now on, it will be become xxx.
This somehow coincides with how time flows. In your example, 暗くなってきました: it has become dark. Talking about daylight condition from “now” prospective.
I believe this is a N4 level grammar. Although they pronounced as て来ました て行きます and the meaning is somehow correlated (if you can get it) but they are often written in hiragana in this specific case.
It can also be used to mean something starts.
I would translate
暗くなってきましたね。
as “it’s starting to get dark”.
I’ve used 雨ふってきた to mean “it’s starting to rain”. I think of てくる to mean “the time of X happening has come”, i.e. “It’s starting to X”.
4 comments
it’s about the process that takes place over time – [https://www.tofugu.com/japanese-grammar/teiku-tekuru/](https://www.tofugu.com/japanese-grammar/teiku-tekuru/) ていく and てくる
It’s not perfectly 1 to 1, but maybe think of it as it “came to be dark”?
Like, the “come” in this sentence isn’t describing any physical motion. Just the end result of the verb
It could be easier to understand In the temporal domain.
Past ->てきました->Now->ていきます->Future
てきました: from past, it has become xxx now.
ていきます: from now on, it will be become xxx.
This somehow coincides with how time flows. In your example, 暗くなってきました: it has become dark. Talking about daylight condition from “now” prospective.
I believe this is a N4 level grammar. Although they pronounced as て来ました て行きます and the meaning is somehow correlated (if you can get it) but they are often written in hiragana in this specific case.
It can also be used to mean something starts.
I would translate
暗くなってきましたね。
as “it’s starting to get dark”.
I’ve used 雨ふってきた to mean “it’s starting to rain”. I think of てくる to mean “the time of X happening has come”, i.e. “It’s starting to X”.