住んでいるのが好きです is a fragment of a sentence that is incorrectly constructed - the
correct way to say "I like living in [place] would be 住むのが好きです. But why is
this?

In the present tense, the usual way to say "I live in [place]" is to use the
state-of-being 〜ている, e.g., 私は日本に住んでいます。By that logic, "I like living in
[place]" should really be "I like the state of living in [place]", or
住んでいるのが好きです. But this sounds weird to me - and the multiple native speakers
I've asked have said this is incorrect. Can someone shed some light on the
reason?

ているのが好き as a construction is definitely not forbidden, as a search on
[alc.co.jp](http://eow.alc.co.jp/search?q=%E3%81%A6%E3%81%84%E3%82%8B%E3%81%AE%E3%81%8C%E5%A5%BD%E3%81%8D)
shows.
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2014-07-29T23:53:36.997
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2014-10-28T10:58:19.070
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question
て-form nominalization
Why is 住んでいるのが好きです incorrect?
I raised a similar question about the tense of verbs modifying nouns, which I
think also applies here - the only difference is that the nominaliser の is
being modified instead of a regular noun. Other users can give their
assessment of the answer which I got from a teacher of Japanese.

_Short answer:_  
The plain and "past"/"perfect" stative verbs are more objective and are
therefore more likely to be used in the media. The present progressive
(〜ているの）is more subjective and therefore more likely to be used by the person
performing the act.

_Full answer (including non-stative verbs):_

I wanted to know the difference between expressions where the verb modifying a
noun is in dictionary form, past-perfect form or ている form.

Expression prompting my question: 会話能力を持った初の人間型ロボットキロボ

(ie: 持ったN vs 持つN＆持っているN）

The answer was as follows：

(I can translate if there is enough demand):

> こちらは状態を表す表現なのでどちらでもいいです。持つ、持ったのほうが、客観的（書き言葉的）に聞こえます。
>
> アクションを表す動詞の時は、現在・過去の意味が入ってしまうため辞書形・ているを使うときと過去を使うときで意味が違います。
>
> 状態動詞例）
>
> 山の上に立つ家・立っている家・立った家 （全てOK)
>
> アクション動詞例）
>
> 山に登る人（未来or 繰り返しのアクション）・  
>  山に登っている人（現在進行or繰り返しのアクション）・  
>  山に登った人（登ったことがあるか、登り終わった人たち）

Regarding the difference between stative verb forms 山の上に立つ家・立っている家・立った家 (or in
your case 住んでいるの vs 住むの）：

The plain and "past"/"perfect" verbs are more objective and are therefore more
likely to be used in the media. The present progressive (〜ているの）is more
subjective and therefore more likely to be used by the person performing the
act.
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2014-07-30T16:05:52.007
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answer
Strictly speaking these two sentences have completely different meaning:

  * 住んでいるのが好き。 - This means that you like the fact someone is living (somewhere). This could be you too, but that's not very clear way to tell it. Let's drop all the wrong usages of this phrase.
  * 住むのが好き 。 - This means you like to live (somewhere).
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2014-07-31T00:54:36.097
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Meh, I just asked my wife (native Japanese) for her opinion on this. I gave
her four sentences and asked her to rank them by "naturalness". She says none
of them are "wrong", but that the ～ている forms are much more natural sounding to
her. I've marked their order of naturalness:

```

    （３）ここに住むのが好きです。
    （１）ここに住んでいるのが好きです。
    （４）ここに暮らすのが好きです。
    （２）ここに暮らしているのが好きです。
    
```

I don't have any mumbo jumbo technical grammar points to offer, and I only
have the experience of living in Japan for 5 years so my opinion is far from
gospel, but I also tend to lean towards ここに住んでいるのが好きです as being the choice I
would go to.

As a bonus, you can also say something like:

```

    東京の暮らしは私に合っている
    東京の生活は私に合っている
    
```

to express a similar idea to the one originally posed, and I think that these
are both grammatically and "naturally" correct.
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2014-07-31T03:54:48.340
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answer
I don't have an analytical answer to this question. But empirically speaking,
it seems like "dictionary form + のが好き" is much more common than "～ている + のが好き".

To be more specific, searching [the BCCWJ corpus via
Shonagon](http://www.kotonoha.gr.jp/shonagon/search_form), I've found that

  * "～て・でいる + のが好き" returned 26 hits
  * "dictionary form + のが好き" returned 623 hits after adjustments (actual number might be a bit lower)

In short, I don't know if 「住んでいるのが好きです」 is incorrect or not, _but_ judging by
the numbers 「住むのが好きです」 is the more common way of saying "I like living in
[place]".

* * *

# Appendix: Breakdown of number of hits for various のが好き constructs

These numbers are true at the time of writing. Team #3 is mostly for
eliminating non-dictionary form hits for team #2.

  1. Team "～ている + のが好き" → 26

    * ているのが好き：17
    * でいるのが好き：9
  2. Team "dictionary form + のが好き" → ~623

    * むのが好き：36
    * すのが好き：34
    * くのが好き：74 excluding ていくのが好き (80 including)
    * るのが好き：410 excluding ている・でいる・てくれる・てあげる + のが好き (440 including)
    * うのが好き：49 excluding てしまう・てもらう + のが好き (52 including)
    * つのが好き：2
    * ぐのが好き：4
    * ぶのが好き：14
    * ぬのが好き：0
  3. (Incomplete) Team "～て + other subsidiary verbs + のが好き" → >14

    * てあるのが好き ：0
    * であるのが好き ：0
    * ていくのが好き ：6
    * でいくのが好き ：0
    * てくるのが好き ：1
    * てあげるのが好き：3
    * てくれるのが好き：1
    * てしまうのが好き：0
    * てもらうのが好き：3

Admittedly this methodology is rather sloppy. There are caveats like

  * there are quite a few possible "て + subsidiary verb + のが好き" patterns not excluded from "dictionary form + のが好き" results. As a result, the actual number for "dictionary form + のがすき" might be a bit, but not significantly, lower.
  * the の might possibly not be the same as the one asked in this question. For example, 言うの might be "the thing that someone said", instead "the action of saying".
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answer