わかる

Etymology 1
From. Derived as the passive or intransitive conjugation of 🇨🇬 root verb. Compare transitive.

As the passive or spontaneous conjugation of waku, the verb wakaru could be translated more directly as something like "it comes apart [for me / he / she / etc.]", roughly analogous to English "I can see how it comes apart" → "I can see how it is put together".

Verb

 * 1)  to be understandable, to understand
 * 2)  to tell, to distinguish
 * 3)  to be recognized, to be realized
 * 4)  to become known, to turn out
 * 1)  to become known, to turn out
 * 1)  to become known, to turn out
 * 1)  to become known, to turn out

Usage notes
In recent usage, this term may be more commonly spelt in hiragana.

The Japanese verb wakaru is most often glossed as to. However, wakaru is intransitive, and it takes the thing that is understood, distinguished, or recognized as the subject (usually marked by particle ), and not the object (usually marked by particle ). Strictly speaking, wakaru is thus closer to English to be, as the verb wakaru describes the thing itself, unlike English to , which describes the action of the person doing the understanding, distinguishing, or recognizing.

Despite the above, the form with and transitive usage also exists, although this may be proscribed, and is not reflected in some dictionaries.

Wakaru can take an agent (what would be the subject of the English verb to ) marked by the particle or a topic marker.


 * *私が分かる (incorrect, ❌)
 * 私に分かる (correct, ✔)

Compare the difference in usage of transitive verb.

Derived terms

 * : to be completely clear by common knowledge
 * : to be completely clear by common knowledge

Related terms

 * : to divide, to split things up, to separate, to classify, to sort out; to split something; to share something
 * : reason for something
 * : the side of something ; armpit

Verb

 * : to split, to fork, to branch off