Usage of 受ける in 日本の大学を受けたいです。


A book I am studying has 日本の大学を受けたいです。translated as "I want to apply to a
Japanese university."

Finding it a little confusing to nail down what sense of 受ける is being used
here.




This 受ける basically means "to take (an exam, a job interview, an audition,
etc.)". We say 試験を受ける, テストを受ける, 面接を受ける, オーディションを受ける and so on.

Since applying to a university/company/job almost always involves some kind of
test/interview, we can just say 京都大学を受ける, トヨタを受ける, シンデレラ(役)を受ける, and so on,
too. Always saying ～の入学試験を, ～の入社試験を or ～役のオーディションを is bothersome, so 受ける in
such cases automatically means taking the corresponding test without
explicitly saying it. "To apply to ～" is usually a natural translation, but
you cannot use 受ける if there is no exam. For example, you cannot say
ボランティアを受ける. The more direct translation of "to apply to " is ～に出願する, but this
is a rather stiff kango verb that is not very common in informal speech.

This is a fairly common derivative usage of 受ける, although it was not listed in
monolingual dictionaries I checked.

(By the way, does "to take Kyoto University" make sense in English, too? At
least DeepL recognizes this usage...)




This 受ける basically means "to take (an exam, a job interview, an audition,
etc.)". We say 試験を受ける, テストを受ける, 面接を受ける, オーディションを受ける and so on.

Since applying to a university/company/job almost always involves some kind of
test/interview, we can just say 京都大学を受ける, トヨタを受ける, シンデレラ(役)を受ける, and so on,
too. Always saying ～の入学試験を, ～の入社試験を or ～役のオーディションを is bothersome, so 受ける in
such cases automatically means taking the corresponding test without
explicitly saying it. "To apply to ～" is usually a natural translation, but
you cannot use 受ける if there is no exam. For example, you cannot say
ボランティアを受ける. The more direct translation of "to apply to " is ～に出願する, but this
is a rather stiff kango verb that is not very common in informal speech.

This is a fairly common derivative usage of 受ける, although it was not listed in
monolingual dictionaries I checked.

(By the way, does "to take Kyoto University" make sense in English, too? At
least DeepL recognizes this usage...)

