As most people might know there are some words in Japanese that can be written with more than one Kanji (or more than one combination of Kanjis) and while they are still very similar in meaning, they might convey a slightly different connotation. For example when I encountered 樹 (pronounced き) in a Manga I was interested as to how exactly 樹 differs from 木.
Seems like I was not the only one:
http://detail.chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/qa/...q147627104
So if I understand correctly, 樹 only refers to living trees, while 木 is a bit more general and can also refer to wood as a building material and the like.
Now I thought it might be a good idea to collect these words and give a short description of the differences when written in Kanji for all of us Japanese learners to use. If anyone else encounters similar words, it would be nice if you could introduce us to them.

Section F of Pye's _The Study of Kanji_ includes a long list of over 200 of these. And it's clearly not comprehensive since it omits 樹 vs 木 :-)

You could also check out Kodansha's Effective Usage Dictionary. It give the differences between synonyms and why they are used in different situations. I think it also has those homophone words that use different kanji but with a slight change in meaning.

聴く - To listen
聞く - To hear
訊く - To ask

There's also
捜す
探す
but I'm not 100% sure on the difference myself in that case.

I learned that 捜す means to search for something you've lost, and 探す means to search for something you want.
Another good one is 会う / 遭う / 逢う. Actually, I just noticed the blindingly obvious, that the Windows IME will pop up a bubble explaining the difference if you pause for a moment when you're selecting which kanji to use.

Tobberoth Wrote:聴く - To listen
聞く - To hear
訊く - To ask

This is misleading. "聞く" fills all of these roles very frequently; it's the other two that are more specialized.

~J

woodwojr Wrote:

Tobberoth Wrote:聴く - To listen
聞く - To hear
訊く - To ask

This is misleading. "聞く" fills all of these roles very frequently; it's the other two that are more specialized.

~J

All of them do, it's not really wrong to use either one for the other meanings. 聞く just happens to be the most commonly used one. In proper texts, you will rarely find any of them used the "wrong" way though.

Out of interest, how are you defining "proper"?

~J

woodwojr Wrote:Out of interest, how are you defining "proper"?

~J

I don't know... novels made for adults? Academic papers? Formal letters?

Pretty much any text where proper kanji usage etc is important, so it obviously excludes pretty much all manga.

Ooh this is a great thread. I had such a hard time with this whenever I tried to read books or song lyrics. I know there is a deeper artistic meaning behind the kanji choice but it was pretty hard to keep looking up kanji.　　

One I found really difficult to understand is 堅い/固い/硬い.
http://detail.chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/qa/...1113753481

Slightly off-topic, but I'd like to link to another chiebukuro Q/A. It's about the verb 問う (to ask), which has the strange -て form 「問うて」 instead of 「問って」.
I was reminded of it because the person who answers is annoyed by the fact that the 問 kanji is actually more appropriate than 聞 and 訊, but is not used today in that fashion. I found the whole explanation very interesting.