Help from Native speakers

[nhk9]

Dear friends,

I've always had troubles memorizing all the useful compound verbs in Japanese. There are just so many in use that are so similar that, without the chance of using Japanese daily, it seems very easy for gaijins like me to forget them.

Recently I found out this site which has a list of Japanese compound verbs. I am wondering if you think the average high school graduate would know maybe all of the ones in the list, or perhaps, say, 90% of the ones in the list?

The link is here http://quizlet.com/set/1454/. I hope I can hear from you guys.

Arigatou gozaimasu

 

[epigene]

Hi nhk9-san!

In trying to answer your question, I had a hard time defining what "an average high school graduate" would be. This is because I see a growing breadth of range in verbal aptitude among high school graduates--from those with appalling lack of vocabulary to those who show highly advanced inguistic skills. Since memory of my high school days (at least about what level of the language I've studied in high school) is already lost in oblivion, the question is better answered by people who can still remember what they learned in high school--people like Cue, undrentide and Nagashima-san.

But, if you should ask me whether I expect a Japanese person to know all the compound verbs on the list, I'd say yes--most of it as part of one's working vocabulary. Would I expect my kids (now 23 and 26, who completed high school education in Japan and went to the US for college) to know all of them? Yes, I would.

I hope it answers at least part of your question.