To Talk
To Tell, To Recite
transitive verb, godan verb
This word consists of kanji with hiragana attached. Because the hiragana ends with an う sound, you know this word is a verb. The kanji itself means language, so when you do language you're going to talk about something. Maybe you're going to tell a story, or the truth.
This verb is transitive, so it generally takes a direct object in Japanese, even though the English translations might not.
かたる
Since this word consists of a kanji with hiragana attached, you can bet that it will use the kun'yomi reading. You didn't learn that reading with this kanji, so here's a mnemonic to help you:
Sometimes when you're trying to talk about something, there will be that one person who always cuts you off to tell their own story. We call them language cutters (かた). They cut you off and make everyone pay attention to what they're saying. Don't be a language cutter.
次のセミナーでは、何について語る予定ですか?
What do you plan to talk about at the next seminar?
田中さん、時間がないので、ぼうけんだんを語るのはこの辺で止めてください。
Mr. Tanaka, time is up, so please wrap up your adventure tale.
この事件を人に語ることはできない。
I can’t talk about this case with people.