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Remembering Compound Verbs - jesse - 2011-02-13
Hi all!
So I'm working through kore (4343/5928) and I've had some trouble with what I've been calling "compound verbs". Things like 引っ張る,引き受ける,受け入れる,...
How do you guys go about remembering these? If I can derive the meaning of the compound from the parts then that helps, but often I don't see any connection. Otherwise I memorize it without using the parts of the compound.
-Jesse
Remembering Compound Verbs - pm215 - 2011-02-13
Yes, compound verb meanings are often related only vaguely or not at all to the meanings of their component verbs; usually I think it's best just to treat it as a verb of its own.
The Handbook of Japanese Compound Verbs has entries for 200 compound verbs including examples for each. The preface/introduction section has a discussion on the various ways that two verbs can combine semantically to give a compound verb's meaning. I'm not sure it's actually all that much more useful than just finding a decent dictionary entry, but OTOH $0.63+shipping isn't very much if you like collecting books on Japanese :-)