Yesterday my (also non Japanese) friend had a headache and we had to buy
medicine in Japanese.

So I looked up how to say "headache" and add it to my vocabulary.

I found the word 頭痛{ずつう} and I suppose it could be used in sentences like
頭痛がある

But when I told my friend about 頭痛 he said "no that's not right." He said it's
頭{あたま}が痛{いた}い so you would make a sentence like 頭が痛いだ.

Obviously they both use the same characters but in different ways. Is the
second sentence more colloquial? Is 頭痛 more technical? Are they both just as
common?
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2014-04-16T01:29:04.007
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question
word-choice colloquial-language phrases
Which is more colloquial for "I have a headache"?
I think the colloquial way (and most common way) is:

> 頭が痛い。

Or even more colloquially dropping が:

> 頭痛いよ。

Please note that 痛い is an i-adjective so 「頭が痛いだ。」 is not correct.

* * *

This can be used for other body parts too.

I think that the confusion is because in English there are words for some of
the "aches" which you often use, like "headache" or "stomach ache". You use
them to say "I have a headache". You don't say "I have a leg pain" though.
Direct translation of constructions does't usually work that well.
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2014-04-16T01:36:14.547
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2014-04-16T01:44:50.310
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answer
You have a couple choices:

  1. 頭が痛い （not ×頭が痛いだ） 
  2. 頭痛がする

I basically agree with Szymon's answer that 頭が痛い is more colloquial and all-
around more common. You can use either phrase, though. (You can make it more
colloquial yet by omitting the particle が.)

Adding だ to adjectives like 痛い is nonstandard.

To make these more polite, use 頭が痛いです or 頭痛がします.
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2014-04-16T01:50:04.850
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2014-04-16T02:15:20.210
2014-04-16T02:15:20.210
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answer