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There are times when both 五日 (5th day of the month) and 何時か (someday) could be
used I think. Does this become a minor problem for Japanese when speaking (no
kanji to guide), or do they speak in some way to avoid the possible confusion?

A sentence I thought of where either いつか could be possible:

> いつか、アメリカに行きます。

Are they going to America on the 5th of the month, or are they expressing
intent to go to America eventually in the future?
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2011-12-22T02:35:26.757
4049
2013-09-28T01:45:01.097
2013-09-27T23:38:07.423
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question
words pronunciation homonyms
How difficult is it for Japanese to distinguish between 五日【いつか】 and 何時か【いつか】 in spoken contexts?
* For your particular sentence, using `五日` adverbially without `に` under the meaning 'fifth day of the month' is ungrammatical, so it is unambiguously `何時か`. They are expressing intent to go to America eventually in the future. As Tsuyoshi Ito correctly points out below, there is still slight chance that it may be `五日` meaning 'for five days,' but this possibility is less likely because (i) `[五]{いつ}[日]{か}[間]{かん}` is more natural, and (ii) it would usually be written in kanji.

  * Generally, in written form, `何時か` is usually written in hiragana, whereas `五日` is usually written in kanji, so you can usually tell.

  * Generally, in spoken form (in the standard dialect), `五日` has the pitch pattern `いつか{LHH}` (low-high-high), whereas `何時か` has the pitch pattern いつか{HLL} (high-low-low), so they are unambiguous.
CC BY-SA 3.0
2011-12-22T02:47:05.893
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2013-09-28T01:45:01.097
2013-09-28T01:45:01.097
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answer