開く（ひらく）vs. 開ける（あける）？

[sweetneet]

hey everyone,
i apologize if this is a dumb question or if this has been asked already in another thread.But after studying Japanese for a while, i still don't understand the difference between 開く（ひらく）and 開ける（あける）。They are both transitive verbs that mean "to open", right? For example, in one of these Beginner Lessons (#147, Looks Good), the husband uses "ブラウザをひらいて” to ask his wife to open a browser. Could he have said "ブラウザをあけて” as well, or no? When do you use ひらく and when do you use あける ??

Thanks in advance!
アニタ from Boston

[Psy]

Hi there アニタさん,

From what I know, 開ける is more for physical things like opening a door, book, eyes, etc. whereas ひらく is a little more abstract, used for things like events and so forth: 会議を開く "to open a meeting" for example. There is some overlap, but I think this is a good guideline. Haven't listened to that lesson, but since a browser window is more abstract, it would explain why they said 開く.

... isn't it irritating how 開く (ひらく) and 開く (あく) are spelled the same way?

[sweetneet]

Thanks Psy-san for the reply! That makes a lot of sense.

And yeah, it is annoying that 開く can be either あく or ひらく。At least they can usually be inferred from context, since あく is intransitive and ひらく is not.

BTW, before I started learning Japanese, I had *no idea* what was meant by a"transitive" or an "intransitive" verb. It's funny, just to learn Japanese grammar I had to become familiar with all these linguistic terms, which has probably improved my knowledge of *English* grammar as well.

-anita

[Bueller_007]

ひらく is both transitive and intransitive.
あく is (it), and 開ける is (t).

Differences are clear from context.