Quote:
Originally Posted by Nyororin
Today I encountered one of my personally most irritating synonyms, and it got me thinking... There must be a lot of others that are frustrating to learners of Japanese.
I invite everyone to toss out their most frustrating, and tell about why it is personally frustrating. It doesn't have to be a perfect synonym - words that are very close in sound or in writing are fine as well.
To start it off, I will list my own.
私立 vs. 市立
They are both read as しりつ... But they have nearly opposite meanings.
私立 is private... Like a private school, or a privately run/funded facility.
市立, on the other hand, is a public, city run facility.
Normally you don't encounter them in situations where they would be mistaken for each other that often. 国立 (nationally run) is a lot more common than 市立.
However, close to me there is a 市立図書館 and a 私立図書館. There is a 私立保育園 and a 市立保育園. A 私立幼稚園 and a 市立幼稚園. A 市立病院 and a 私立病院...
And people will say しりつの方 as if that helps. And it isn't just me who has trouble with this. I have watched other native speakers have a conversation like this:
今日病院行かないと
どこの？ 買い物行くから送っとくか？
しりつの方
どっちの？ 駅近くの？
いや、高速向こうのしりつ
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Synonyms or homonyms? 「私立」 and 「 市立」 are of the latter kind, I think.
Anyway, with those two words, we do something around Tokyo that you do not around Nagoya to avoid possible confusions. We purposefully "mis-read" 「市立」 as 「いちりつ」 in conversations where we foresee a possible confusion. (And I just found out that you can get 「市立」 by typing 「いちりつ」, too.)