go back and forth?

The phrase 「いったり　きたり　する」is the ‘ go back and forth’ in Japanese.

You probably have learned Verbたり、Verbたり　する in the text book( e.g., Chapter 11 in Genki Book 1)

Generally we use this phrase when you select a few highlighted word( verb) what you did from the several verbs.

For example, you are asked ‘how was your weekend? ‘ and if you say ‘ I had a great time with family to go to the beach, enjoyed BBQ , sunshine, cocktail, meet up friends for dinner and eat a lot of foods…….’!! it is too long! Instead of that sentence, we would select 2 highlighted verbs in this case.

かぞくと　ビーチへいったり、バーベキューをしたり　した。

That is enough for people to understand that you had actually more than that.

The above is the general uses of verbたり verbたり　する.

Let’s go back to the original ‘ go back and forth’ phrase.

「いったり　きたり　する」

いく( to go) and くる ( to come) are the antonym.

いく⇄くる

What else can be the antonym?

1 出る⇄入る　　　　出たり　入ったり　する

2雨が　降る⇄止む 雨が　降ったり　止んだり　する

3 ドアを　開ける⇄閉める　ドアを　開けたり　閉めたり　する

Wow, we can say all of above examples !

Let’s find the antonym and try たり　たり　する phrase is possible to make!