To Commute
To Attend, To Go Back And Forth
intransitive 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 means pass through but we already know the word 通る which means to pass through. This word means a different kind of passing through, like how you pass through the halls of your school everyday. But we don't say to pass through school, we say to attend school, or to commute to school.
Since this word consists of a kanji with hiragana attached, you can bet that it will use one of the kun'yomi readings. You didn't learn that reading with this kanji, so here's a mnemonic to help you:
You live in the middle of three different school districts so you need to decide which of the three schools you want to attend. You decide you don't mind that you have to commute to the farthest of the three because their mascot is Wile E. Coyote (かよ). He's your favorite Looney Toon because he always has the energy to go back and forth after that road runner.
学校に通う
to commute to school
教室に通う
to attend classroom lessons
病院に通う
to commute to the hospital
えっ、北海道からおきなわまで毎日通ってるの？
What!? Are you going back and forth between Hokkaido and Okinawa every day?
コウイチは、トーフグのオフィスまでハーレーで通っています。
Koichi commutes to the Tofugu office on a Harley‐Davidson.
私の妹は、四月からトーフグ学園に通うことになります。
My younger sister will attend Tofugu Academy starting in April.