I'm having trouble distinguishing between when 家 is read as uchi and when its read as ie.

So... whats the diff?

This gets brought up a lot. IIRC, it's uchi for your house and ie for a house.

Cheers. That sorts it.

Might be better to say that if you're talking about the house as a home, use うち, and if as a house, then いえ. That is, it depends on the level of familiarity and intimacy... For instance, you might hear someone refer to their grandparent's 家 as うち, or discuss how they'll build their own 家, pronouncing it as いえ. Correct me if I'm wrong, ppl. ;p

It's uchi when you want to convey more of a family sense. You can use this with other people's houses too. It is normally written in hiragana. It will sometimes be written in kanji, but for these cases it is more of what you get out of context.

And it's ie when it more of just a building in which people reside. You can use this anyone and it's normally written in kanji.

A Japanese person once told me that if it's in kanji then it's ie, and if it's uchi in hiragana then it's uchi. That is, the kanji is always ie.

Smackle Wrote:It's uchi when you want to convey more of a family sense. You can use this with other people's houses too. It is normally written in hiragana. It will sometimes be written in kanji, but for these cases it is more of what you get out of context.

But isn't it still only an in-group word for home? That is, I though that you could only refer to other people's houses as うち when that person is close to you in some way. The out-group version of うち is おたく, whereas いえ is just a generic word for a house.

To me,うち（家） has a feeling of 内（うち）= inside, my side, mine. Like うちの学校 = my school, うちの親 = my parents, うちの会社 = my company, うちら = us, and うち = my home.

いえ on the other hand, simply means 'house' and 'clan'.


edit: You can say あなたの　おうち.