Why is "Try Again" translated to やり直す?


In the English of iOS, when the phone can't recognize your Touch ID when
unlocking the device, it says on the top there "Try Again". After I switched
the language to Japanese though, it turns into "やり[直]{なお}す".

[![enter image description
here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/OvAAXm.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/OvAAXm.png)

After looking up the dictionary, 直す means "to fix/repair", which kind of makes
sense. That is because it is kind of asking the user to "fix" the position of
the finger or something like that (The user might be partially touching the
home button and that may be why the identification failed).

However, why is やり used here? I looked up the dictionary for やり and found that
it means a "spear" (槍). Since that makes no sense in this context, I did some
more searching.

Then I realized that やり might be 遣り, 演り or 飲り written in Hiragana for ease of
understanding. And one of these verb stems combine with 直す to form a compound
verb, like 思い出す. But I don't know which one it is since none of these makes
sense.

What is the meaning of やり?




Japanese has tons of [compound verbs
(複合動詞{ふくごうどうし})](http://vvlexicon.ninjal.ac.jp/en/) and やり直す is one of them.

  * やり is the masu-stem of [やる](http://jisho.org/word/%E9%81%A3%E3%82%8B), which is a very basic verb that means "to do." Note that this verb is almost always written in hiragana when it simply means "to do."
  * 直す here means something like "re-" (as in "reorder", "rethink", etc). It can follow almost any other verb and add the meaning of "re-." (See "Syntactic and Lexical Compound Verbs" section in the linked lexicon).

Put together,
[やり直す](http://jisho.org/search/%E3%82%84%E3%82%8A%E7%9B%B4%E3%81%99) means
"retry" or "redo."

Similar common compound verbs:

>   * 見{み}直す see again, review
>   * 読{よ}み直す reread
>   * 考{かんが}え直す rethink
>   * 送{おく}り直す resend
>




Japanese has tons of [compound verbs
(複合動詞{ふくごうどうし})](http://vvlexicon.ninjal.ac.jp/en/) and やり直す is one of them.

  * やり is the masu-stem of [やる](http://jisho.org/word/%E9%81%A3%E3%82%8B), which is a very basic verb that means "to do." Note that this verb is almost always written in hiragana when it simply means "to do."
  * 直す here means something like "re-" (as in "reorder", "rethink", etc). It can follow almost any other verb and add the meaning of "re-." (See "Syntactic and Lexical Compound Verbs" section in the linked lexicon).

Put together,
[やり直す](http://jisho.org/search/%E3%82%84%E3%82%8A%E7%9B%B4%E3%81%99) means
"retry" or "redo."

Similar common compound verbs:

>   * 見{み}直す see again, review
>   * 読{よ}み直す reread
>   * 考{かんが}え直す rethink
>   * 送{おく}り直す resend
>

