This inquiry handles the process of lexical evolution by Japanese learners of English in instructional settings. A test was designed to measure their inter‐lexical skill (i.e. the capacity to employ semantically linked words differently) about the English basic verbs of sensory perception (e.g. see, listen, smell), which constitutes a conceptual lexical network. Three hundred nineteen university students of varied levels of English competence partook in this inquiry. The overall results displayed that Japanese university students had difficulty in the selective use of basic verbs of perception, and the study distinguished some specific problematic areas. The performance of the participants was debated in terms of a learning strategy, i.e. the search‐translation‐equivalent strategy. Pedagogical implications were debated with reference to core schemas and lexical networks.