I am new to Japanese and I want to know how to find the differences between
words that are pronounced the exact same way. So let's say there was a word in
Hiragana and a word in Katakana, both pronounced the same way. And I was have
a general conversation with a Japanese person, how would we know the
difference between them?
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2016-12-27T20:19:36.257
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2020-07-03T15:15:14.173
2020-06-29T22:44:42.473
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pronunciation katakana hiragana conversations
How to know the difference between two words with same pronunciation?
Context.

For example, きかい can mean either "machine" (機械) or "opportunity" (機会). You can
come up with some sort of sentence that includes one of them, and it may be
ambiguous:

> 自己紹介{じこしょうかい}する **きかい** がなかった。

When spoken (or written in kana), this sentence can mean one of two things:

  * I didn't have a chance to introduce myself.
  * There was no machine that introduces itself.

Hopefully it should be obvious which one it is, especially when given a
context.
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2016-12-27T20:53:42.590
42050
2016-12-27T20:53:42.590
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answer
If basing the assumption that identical kana means "pronounced the exact the
same way", hauska tavata!

For people of less monotone languages than Finnish, in addition to context,
they apparently have the tone/intonation. Maybe the most classic example is
hashi/hashi (the chopsticks vs bridge) which others than Finns I think
understand even without hearing the context.
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2020-07-03T15:15:14.173
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2020-07-03T15:15:14.173
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