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According to the anki deck’s description, “kiru” means “to cut” and “kireru” means “(something) to cut.” I understand kiru’s definition since it is so clear-cut (hahaha) but I don’t understand when to use kireru. What’s the difference? Does it have to do with context? Could give an example of each please? Thanks! :)
I think 切る is used as a way of saying you are going to cut something, where as 切れる is saying you are going to cut something off. I think one of the decks specifically has 切れる as “to be cut off” but I could be wrong
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This reply was modified 13 years ago by
Luke.
切れる is intransitive, therefore it can’t use the を particle or so I think. It can mean to be sharp or cut well as in このナイフはよく切れる This knife cuts well, or このナイフはとても切れる This knife is pretty sharp.
切る is more straightforward. ハムを切る Cut ham. It’s the transitive form and can use the を particle.
I might be wrong though.
Anonymous切れる Is the potential form of 切る。
切る＝Cut
切れる＝Can cut切れる means something “can cat” therefor it must be good at cutting therefor “This knife is good at cutting” or “This knife cuts well”
切れる the intransitive verb is different from 切れる the potential of 切る. “The knife cuts well” isn’t potential, because potential form is used to describe the ability of a living subject to do something.
Armando is right – 切る for when an agent is acting on an object (better than saying “when something does something to something” hehe), 切れる for when the subject is being acted on. “I’ll cut your face with this big knife!” as opposed to “Your face will get cut by my big knife!”
Bbvoncrumb is also right to say 切れる is the potential form of 切る, but as for learning the word as part of an Anki deck, it will mean “to be cut”: when you learn verbs on flash cards, it makes more sense to learn them in plain/positive/present form, right? No point having separate cards for 切る・切ります・切った・切って・切らない・etc. To be fair though, I actually have some plain and polite cards for the same word in my TextFugu deck, but mostly just to learn the verbs that end with る but conjugate to ～ります instead of just ～ます (the other ones I should really delete).
Just to clarify a bit further. 切れる can’t be potential in このナイフはよく切れる because このナイフ cannot be the subject of a potential. If that sentence was using potential 切れる then it would mean “this knife can be cut well” (“one can cut this knife well”), which of course doesn’t make much sense.
It should usually be obvious from context and grammar whether or not it is the intransitive or potential. Another example of intransitive:
電話は切れた。
The phone call was cut off.So in short, 切る is used in the active voice (“I cut the mango.”) and 切れる is used in the passive voice (“The mango was cut by me.”)
Passive and intransitive are different things. Passive sentences are usually transitive. “The mango was cut by me” for example is passive transitive. In Japanese it would be マンゴーが私に切られる, using the passive form of 切る.
Post #3 in the following thread might help to understand the difference: http://forum.koohii.com/viewtopic.php?id=6903
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This reply was modified 13 years ago by
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