Toru: Take, Book, Remove, and Which Kanji to Use

One verb, five kanji

Every sense of toru starts from the same picture: you bring something under your control. You bring an object into your hand, a qualification into your record, a seat into your name, a stain off a shirt, or an image into your camera. Japanese writes that single verb with different kanji depending on which kind of taking you mean, and choosing among them is where learners lose time. The good news is that 取る is the default and covers most of the range on its own.

The other four are specialists. 撮る is only for photographs and moving images. 採る is for adopting a method, hiring a person and gathering something you have selected. 捕る and 獲る are for catching living things, with 捕る for catching or capturing and 獲る leaning toward hunting and fishing for a catch you keep. There is also 摂る for taking in food or nutrition, which many writers replace with 取る or kana.

Taking something in your hand

This is the physical core, and it is the sense you use at a table, in a shop and in an office. The polite request is totte kudasai, and totte itadakemasu ka is the softer version for strangers. Watch the te-form: totte has a small tsu and takes two beats, so a rushed tote sounds like a different word. Also note that toru is taking something toward you, while removing clothing such as a hat or glasses uses the same verb: bōshi o torimasu.

Getting and securing: licences, bookings, time off

This group is the reason toru matters so much in daily life in Japan. You take a qualification, a booking, a seat, a day off and a full night of sleep, all with the same verb. The pattern for asking permission at work is a soft question with mo ii desu ka or a request with the reason first. When you book by phone, the useful frame is yoyaku o toritai n desu ga, which leaves the sentence politely unfinished so the staff member can lead.

The replies you should expect are short. For a booking, moshiwake gozaimasen, sono jikan wa ippai desu means the slot is full, so be ready with hoka no jikan wa aite imasu ka. For leave, a manager usually answers with hai, dōzo or a question about cover, dare ka kawari ni onegai dekimasu ka.

Notes, contact, responsibility and time

A second abstract group appears constantly at work. Memo o toru is taking notes, renraku o toru is getting in touch, sekinin o toru is taking responsibility, and jikan o toru is taking up or sparing time. Baransu o toru and komyunikēshon o toru follow the same shape with loanwords. These are fixed collocations, so learn the noun and verb as one unit rather than translating take each time.

Removing things, and what toreru means

Toru also means taking something away: a stain, a smell, tiredness, pain. Its intransitive partner toreru describes the same event happening by itself, so yogore o torimashita is what you did and yogore ga toremashita is what happened. Toreru doubles as the potential form, which is why yoyaku ga toremasen can mean the booking cannot be secured. Nothing is ambiguous in practice, because the noun tells you which reading makes sense.

撮る: photographs and filming

When the object is an image, the kanji is 撮る and nothing else. Shashin o toru is take a photo, dōga o toru is shoot a video, and eiga o toru is make a film. The polite ways to ask are worth memorising exactly: shashin o totte mo ii desu ka asks for permission to photograph, while shashin o totte itadakemasu ka asks someone to take a photo of you. Learners mix these two up regularly, and the difference is who holds the camera.

If a member of staff says satsuei wa goenryo kudasai, that is a polite refusal, and the right answer is shitsurei shimashita rather than an argument. In museums you may also hear furasshu wa goenryo kudasai, meaning photos are fine but flash is not.

採る, 捕る and 獲る: the narrow kanji

These three appear less often, but they show up in work and in nature writing. 採る is choosing and taking in: a method a team adopts, a new employee a company hires, blood taken for a test, mushrooms gathered on a hillside. 捕る is catching or capturing something that moves, from an insect to a ball. 獲る is used for hunting and fishing, where the catch is the point. In casual writing, many people simply use 取る or kana for all three.

Which kanji to type

When you type toru on a Japanese keyboard, the conversion list offers several options in a row, and picking the wrong one is a common written mistake. The table below is the quick decision you need. Keep in mind that hiragana is a legitimate choice: abstract collocations such as baransu o toru, tsukare o toru and jikan o toru appear in kana constantly, and no reader will think less of you for writing them that way.

Compound verbs built on tori

The stem tori joins other verbs to make a family of high-frequency compounds, and toru also appears as the second half of some. Uketoru is to receive, kikitoru is to catch what someone said, torikesu is to cancel, torikaeru is to exchange, and torikumu is to tackle a task. Kikitoremasen deshita is one of the most useful sentences a learner can own, because it says you did not catch the words without claiming you do not understand Japanese at all.

Te-form helpers you will say every day

Toru combines with the ordinary te-form helpers, and each one changes the social meaning. Totte oku means take it in advance and leave it ready, which is how you reserve a seat or keep a portion aside. Totte kuru means go and fetch it. Totte ageru offers to get it for someone, totte kureru thanks someone who did, and totte itadaku is the humble version you use with a customer or a superior.

Mistakes to fix while you speak

• Do not use 撮る for taking an object; a photograph is the only thing you 撮る.
• Pronounce the te-form with the small tsu, totte, not tote.
• Say yasumi o torimasu for time off; yasumimasu on its own means you are absent today.
• Use jikan ga kakarimasu for something that takes time, and jikan o torimasu for taking up someone's time.
• Remember the particle switch: yogore o toru but yogore ga toreru.
• When you cannot recall the kanji while typing, write とる in kana rather than guessing.