Lesson 25 of 40
Vocabulary Sprint w06b — hands, heat and two kinds of crying
about 12 minutes
After this lesson you can
- Choose に for 触る and を for 踏む and 噛む, and say why they differ.
- Use 沸く and 沸かす correctly, having been given both halves of the pair.
Words this lesson teaches
- 触る
- touches — takes に, not を, because it is arriving at a surface
- 踏む
- steps on, treads on — takes を, because your foot acts on it
- 噛む
- bites, chews — also what you say when you stumble over a word
- 投げる
- throws — of a ball, and of giving up on a task
- 捨てる
- throws away, discards — the word on every bin in Japan
- 拾う
- picks up off the ground — also what you do to a taxi
- 落とす
- drops something, loses it — the syllabus spells it 落す; the world writes 落とす
- 打つ
- hits, strikes — a nail, a ball, and also a keyboard
- 折る
- folds, or snaps — the same verb for paper and for a bone
- 塗る
- spreads or paints on — butter, ointment, a wall
- 漬ける
- soaks, pickles — sounds exactly like 付ける and 着ける
- 飾る
- decorates, puts on display
- 育てる
- raises, brings up — a child, a plant, a junior colleague
- 焼く
- grills, bakes, burns — the を half of 焼ける, which w03 taught
- 沸く
- comes to the boil — of water doing it by itself, so it takes が
- 沸かす
- boils water — you doing it, so it takes を; the other half of 沸く
- 乾く
- dries out — of washing and of air; partner 乾かす, which no lesson teaches
- 泣く
- weeps — of a person; an animal's cry is 鳴く, the same sound
- 鳴る
- rings, sounds — of a bell or a phone, and it takes が
What it explains
Arriving takes に; acting takes を
This is one rule wearing several hats, and you have met it before without being told. 着く arrives at a station and takes に. 寄る arrives at a shop on the way and takes に. 勝つ arrives at a victory over somebody and takes に. 触る arrives at a surface and takes に. Meanwhile 踏む, 噛む, 打つ, 折る, 塗る and 捨てる all do something to a thing, and every one takes を. When you meet a new verb and cannot remember its particle, the useful question is not what the English preposition was but whether the thing ends up altered. It is not perfect — no rule about particles is — but it is right far more often than translating from English.
泣く, 鳴く and 鳴る
泣く and 鳴く are both なく. A person 泣く and an animal 鳴く, and Japanese draws a line there that English does not — a dog barks, a cat mews, a bird sings, but in Japanese all three 鳴く, and none of them 泣く. 鳴る is the third of the set: not a creature but a thing, so a bell, a phone and an alarm all 鳴る. The kanji tells you which: 泣 has the water radical, because weeping is water, while 鳴 is 口 beside 鳥, a mouth beside a bird. That is the second time in this sprint that a character has settled a question the sound could not, after 漬ける against 付ける and 着ける, and it is the argument for kanji in one line.
The scene itself is in the app.
Lesson one of this track is free to read in full. From lesson two on, the story, the audio and the review are part of a free account.