*Cough* Pretty sure that’s not a noun. It’s just the verb 得る with the る lopped off. I have some issues with the permissibility of single-kana words anyway.

Ok. Now I have the faintest idea.

Is this like that bit from The Phantom Toolbooth, where numbers grow on trees and words have to be dug out of the ground?

I haven’t the faintest idea what it is you’re trying to do…

Guess. It’s fifty-fifty either way. For that matter, since it’s self-graded, just guess both and mark as you see fit. Most radical lists I’ve seen don’t even bother to differentiate between them. Frankly, it’s not important which is which, so long as you can recognise it when it appears in a character.

何かおさがしでしょうか. Are you looking for something?

Alternately, いっらしゃいませ will do the trick well enough if they approach you. =)

Basically, when Kanji was “borrowed” from China, they came with their own pronunciations built in – this is the on’yomi, the original Chinese way of saying it. The kanji were also used for words in Japanese which already had a Japanese pronunciation, so the kanji gained those as well – this is the kun’yomi, the native Japanese reading.

The handy rule of thumb is that you’ll use the on’yomi when a kanji is in a compound word with other kanji, and the kun’yomi if it’s on its own, especially if it’s not a noun, and it’s followed by some sort of hiragana verb/adjective ending. For example: 強. In the compound word 勉強 (べんきょう) meaning “study”, you use the on’yomi, きょう. As an adjective 強い (つよい) meaning “strong”, you use the kun’yomi, つよ.

Note that this not a hard-and-fast rule – there are exceptions – but it’s a good place to start for educated guesses.

For 分かる, you’d usually use が – the basic pattern is the ol’ ～ は ～ が sentence structure. を, according to my grammar dictionary, indicates “non-spontaneous comprehension”, such as when someone is trying to make someone else understand, or if the experiencer is making a conscious effort to understand. If you’re making a conscious effort to understand Japanese, then, you’d use を, whereas if you’re talking about English, which (I assume) you can understand just fine without thinking about it, you’d use が. At least, that’s my take on things.

For -たい, the choice of particle tends to indicate how much you want the thing – が indicates a higher level of desire than を. There are certain cases where you must use one or the other, though. If it’s going to be unclear what the direct object is, or the verb is passive, or you’re talking about someone else’s desire, you have to use を. For intransitive verbs, which don’t have a direct object, you need to use が.

And I wonder if those explanations just confused things further. =)

Shame to hear that, Gigatron – I hope your fortunes improve, before it gets too late to make a difference.

As for your can’t-book-for-a-month issue, I wonder if that mightn’t be an entirely bad thing – I can understand not wanting to move around, but maybe you could try staying in widely-separated areas, and focus your attention on where you’re staying. For example, ten days in Chiba, then ten days in central Tokyo, then ten days in Yokohama/Kanagawa. Just a thought. =)