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I know that -てみる can mean "try", but my understanding of it is that it means "try it and see what it's like" or "give it a try". But is there a way of expressing "try" that emphasizes that effort was made to succeed?

As an example, saying "I am trying to do Kendo" in Japanese:


sounds like I'm going for a brief "trial" to see how I like it. How would I express that I am making a strong effort to succeed at it?

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What about 努力する？ –  snailboat Oct 28 '12 at 3:00
@snailplane For me 努力 has a connotation of trying as hard as you can at something that is considered your job/obligation/etc. –  Earthliŋ Oct 28 '12 at 9:02
As I understand it, when someone says “I am trying to do Kendo,” the speaker has not started Kendo yet, and it is different from trying Kendo. Which is your question? –  Tsuyoshi Ito Oct 28 '12 at 11:47
@TsuyoshiIto: It's ambiguous. If the speaker has not yet started the activity, "I'm trying to do X" implies that there is something preventing them from starting. If they have already started a regular/repeating activity, it can either have the same "I am having difficulty" implication, or it can have an implication that they are somewhat new to the activity. "I am trying Kendo" overlaps with this second meaning. –  jkerian Oct 29 '12 at 21:16

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up vote 19 down vote accepted

As a native speaker, I would say:




But, these are a little bit colloquial. When I want to be more formal, I will say:


or, simply,

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Hmm, that's exactly but I wanted to post as an answer, but I doubted myself. Glad to see I was on the right track. –  istrasci Oct 28 '12 at 5:03

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