This may be a stupid question but hear me out please.
So I was recently reading ハリポタと賢者の石 and came across the following sentence:
ハリーはとても何か言うどころではなく、笑いを***堪える***のに必死で、あばら骨が二本折れたかと思うほど苦しかった。
I didn’t know what 堪える meant so I looked it up.
Turns out it can be read as たえる、こらえる、and こたえる. They all have the same definition.
My question is, how do I approach words like these? Do I just take the highest frequency and put it into Anki? Since the readings have the same definition, when do I use which reading?
Sorry if something similar has been asked before, I couldn’t find anything.
2 comments
I usually look at the example sentences with furigana and see which one appears to be used most commonly and naturally. That’s usually a safe bet. You can always show your card to someone for feedback.
According [to this](https://jisho.org/search/%E5%A0%AA%E3%81%88%E3%82%8B), たえる is intransitive, and the sentence uses it transitively, so it can’t be that. The transitive form with the 堪 kanji is pronounced こたえる.