Vocabulary 1-9 来: Come, Towards, Future, Roughly and Ever Since

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你是落在我世界里的一束光
向我奔来，万物都生长
You are a beam of light that shines upon my world.
When you run toward me, you give everything life.
When this new song, 落在生命里的光, the light shines in my life, was released in November 2021, it took over the internet overnight.
And today, let’s talk about something very important that appears in the lyrics, the character 来, it’s a top 15 Chinese word.
The reason why this character ranks number 15, is that it has quite a few flexible uses and it is everywhere in Chinese, so, let’s take a closer look at its uses and meanings.
First, it’s a verb, it means to come over, to arrive.
春天来了, it’s springtime.
问题来了, here comes the problem.
我从家里来, I came from home.
The second use, is to describe a direction of action, and it is placed after other verbs.
In the lyrics, it says, 向我奔来, run towards me.
And of course, the other direction would be running away, and that’s when the character 去 should be used, which is the antonym of 来.
And to construct a sentence, it’s like 向门口跑去, running off to the door.
Now another example, 把手机拿来, bring me the phone.
But if we change 来 to another character 走, it becomes the opposite direction, 把手机拿走, take the phone away.
The next usage requires the character 来 to be placed before the verbs since Chinese grammar doesn’t have the concept of tense, if you are trying to describe something that you are going to do, which is in the future tense, you could use 来 to indicate that.
你来唱首歌, You should sing a song, so the action of singing is going to happen.
一起来想办法, let’s figure this out together, so you are suggesting to do something next.
Next, the fourth use, when a number is followed by the character 来, it becomes an estimation, usually a quantity that is more than that number.
二十来人, Roughly more than 20 people.
一百来万, Roughly more than 1 million.
And remember, 来 is placed right after the number and before the unit, because 来 is more like part of the figure.
十来公斤, roughly more than 10 kilograms.
Now the fifth meaning, is the future, and there are many words and phrases on this one.
将来, the future.
来年, next year.
后来, afterward, or coming next.
来临, incoming.
来生, next life, 来生 is a very romantic word in Chinese, here’s a song to illustrate that.
愿来生我们还能不期而遇
May we meet again in the next life.
The sixth meaning, something started from a point of time in the past to the present, similar to ever since.
二十年来, in the past 20 years.
从来, always, all the time.
历来, throughout, 历 is 历史 it means history, so it’s like to say, ever since the beginning of time.
近来, recently, 近 means close, so 近来 means since a short period of time.