To Try Out, To Test, To Test The Limits, To Try
Transitive verb and Godan verb
ためす
この薬を試してみます。
I'll try out this medicine.
どのくらい速く日本語の早口言葉を言えるか、試してみようよ。
Let's try to see how fast we can say Japanese tongue twisters.
肘を舐めれるかどうかは分からないけど、試しにやってみるよ。
I don’t know if I can lick my elbow, but I’ll give it a try.
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 attempt or try. The verb vocab version is to attempt or to try out. Why don't you try out the meaning of this verb, while you're at it?
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: Okay. Here's the deal. We have this wild animal. I want you to attempt to tame (ため) it. Now, imagine trying to tame this wild animal. Yeehaw!