Motion Verbs

Motion Verbs and Goal Particle e or ni

1. Motion Verbs, IKU (to go) and KURU (to come)
The verb, iku is used when the speaker or someone (or something such as a car) moves AWAY from where the speaker is standing at her utterance time.
IKU
The polite form of iku is ikimasu and this verb belongs to U-Verbs.
The gerund form of iku is itte.

The verb, kuru, on the other hand, is used when the speaker or someone (or something) moves TOWARD where the speaker is standing at her utterance time.
KURU
The polite form of kuru is kimasu and this is an irregular verb.
The gerund form of kuru is kite.

2. Just like English, Japanese utilizes a particle to indicate the GOAL of one's motion. There are two goal particles in Japanese:

(place)-e 'to (place)'
(place)-ni 'to (place)'

There are some semantic and syntactic differences between the two particles.
However, at this point, we can ignore such differences and consider them the same.

To express the meaning of 'go to Tokyo', for instance, we say:
Tookyoo-e (or Tookyoo-ni) ikimasu.

3. Let's practice! We use the particle e here.

go to a toilet Toire-e ikimasu.
go to the Tokyo Station Tookyoo Eki-e ikimasu.
go to a departmentstore Depaato-e ikimasu.
go to a supermarket Suupaa-e ikimasu.
go to a post office Yuubinkyoku-e ikimasu.

Let's practice! Go to this drill!