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What is the difference between 鳥肉 and 鶏肉? A friend said that 鶏肉 is cooked
chicken and 鳥肉 is raw chicken. That doesn't seem right to me since I've rarely
seen 鳥肉 used.
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2015-09-02T02:37:55.923
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kanji
Difference between 鳥肉 and 鶏肉
Basic answer: they do not differ in the way your friend claims.

A google image search can be helpful for these sorts of questions. If you do
so for this question, you'll see that they turn up roughly the same images
with little distinction in terms of whether it is cooked or not.

Longer answer
([reference](http://detail.chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/qa/question_detail/q119765241)):

[鳥肉]{とりにく} is literally "bird meat."

[鶏肉]{とりにく} is chicken meat (also readable as
[けいにく](https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%B6%8F%E8%82%89)).

Turns out though that nearly all of the bird meat people in contemporary Japan
eat is chicken. Ergo, the uses are largely synonymous. One defense of this
suggestion is that we don't bother spelling out types of cattle so precisely
most of the time. What do you want for dinner? "Guernsey Beef Steak" vs.
"Angus Beef Steak" (normally, we'd just say steak).

Humorous bonus question from
[知恵袋](http://detail.chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/qa/question_detail/q1369222773) was
why a 焼き鳥屋 is not called a 焼き鶏屋 since the bird meat there is all chicken
usually.

Conceivably, 鳥肉 could be meaningfully broader in some place where they eat
pheasant, quail, or duck. My knowledge is not exhaustive.
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