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> 手紙を書きかけたんですが、まだ書いていません。
>
> I got started on the letter, but I haven't finished writing it yet.

The ending かける indicates that an action has been started but has not been
brought to a finish or an end. However in this example I am puzzled by the
second half of the sentence.

If I break it down literally, this is the way I comprehend it:

手紙を書きかけたんですが、I started (but did not finish the letter), but...

まだ書いていません。 still am not writing (the letter).

Assuming the highlighted translation is correct, what am I misreading in the
second half of the sentence? I am puzzled by the use of the negative in the
second half, as I would have assumed まだ書いています would make more sense to
correspond with the desired meaning of the translation. I guess in this
example using 書いています would have expressed a completed action, so 書いていません means
"not finished writing" rather than "not writing"?

Let me try making another example:

> ごはんを作りかけたんですが、まだ作っていません。
>
> I started to make food, but I still haven't finished yet.

Compare the latter example to this:

> A ごはん作った？
>
> B まだ作っていません。
>
> A Did you make food?
>
> B Not yet.
>
> (perhaps implying that food preparation has not yet started?)

If one writes the original sentence in the positive how does the meaning
change? Would the following translation be correct?

> 手紙を書きかけたんですが、まだ書いています。
>
> I got started on the letter, but I'm still writing it.
CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-02-03T17:44:28.970
11126
2013-02-06T06:42:05.067
2020-06-17T08:18:27.500
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question
grammar
Question on expressing a half-completed action -- 動作が中途である状態
You might want to have a look at

[When is Vている the continuation of action and when is it the continuation of
state?](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/3122/when-
is-v%E3%81%A6%E3%81%84%E3%82%8B-the-continuation-of-action-and-when-is-it-the-
continuation-of-state/3140#3140)

To summarize quickly, Japanese has "action verbs", for which ている expresses
progressiveness

> 食べている is eating

and "change-of-state verbs" for which ている expresses completeness

> 落ちている has fallen (or maybe "is lying on the floor")

but the separation of verbs is not clear-cut. It highly depends on context,
and also speaker preference, to some degree, it seems. See [Does Vて+いる always
mean an action already
completed?](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/3262) for more
discussion.

So in 書いている meaning "is writing", 書く is acting as an action verb, and when
meaning "has written", it is acting as a change-of-state verb.

For what it's worth, the use of the ている form to indicate completion for action
verbs is [commonly
discussed](http://www.guidetojapanese.org/forum/viewtopic.php?id=4601), but it
seems to be a common observation that it's more common in the negative than
the positive, i.e.

> 書いている most likely to mean "is writing", but might mean "has written"  
>  書いていない ambiguous between "is not writing" and "has not written"
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2013-02-04T03:16:53.737
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2013-02-06T06:42:05.067
2017-04-13T12:43:44.397
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answer