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In English it seems that cold is just always cold just as warm and hot
regardless of whether the word describes a person's experience or the actual
physical state of an object. In Japanese however there seems to be a strange
case where when describing a _cold weather_ versus a _cold drink_ you would
use the words [寒]{さむ}い or [冷]{つめ}たい respectively, which both seem to translate
to the word _cold_ in English. This difference has always been confusing to me
and I can't seem to develop a rule-of-thumb to follow in order to choose the
right word for the right situation.

I've heard it described by some native Japanese speakers that 寒い should be
used for things that you cannot touch. My assumption is that by "cannot touch"
this is referring to things in a more abstract concept such as _weather_ or
the _day_ and not things that are simply out of reach physically such as a
_distant planet_ , however I haven't been able to confirm the last case.

Another point that I think is interesting is that the words _warm_ and _hot_
in English do not seem to have the same Japanese word counterparts where one
is more direct translation and the other means "to the touch" but instead warm
and hot in Japanese appear to be simply あたたかい and あつい respectively. Am I
missing something, perhaps there are other word analogies for these other
adjectives of which I'm just unaware.

As requested here are a few examples that demonstrate my confusion as far as
proper usage of these two words.

  * 空気は寒い when speaking of feeling of the air when stepping out of the house.
  * 水は冷たい when wading through some cold water.
  * 私はさむい when describing one's physical feeling caused by any of the above.
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question
word-choice
What is the real difference between the proper use of the words さむい and つめたい?
"寒い" is typically used to describe weather, "冷たい" is used to describe a cold
physical object.
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your japanese friend was correct in the being able to touch part. Typically
the air is samui and coffee would be tsumetai.
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2011-06-01T02:30:49.303
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冷たい is for stuff, 寒い is for atmosphere. The same goes for 熱い/暑い and 温かい/暖かい,
but those are pronounced exactly the same.
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I can't think of a situation in which 冷たい would apply to anything but food or
drink. It think it's also mostly a positive feeling (a cool/cold drink), where
寒い seems to be mostly undesirable. For cool weather, etc., though, you would
use [涼]{すず}しい.

An idiomatic usage of them is where さむい is used sarcastically like after
someone tells a bad joke, and 冷たい is used to say that someone is
cold/unforgiving/harsh.
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"冷たい" is used for physical objects that are cold to the touch.

  * Ice is "冷たい". A surface is "冷たい". A person can be "冷たい". Water is "冷たい".

"寒い" is the feeling you get when cold, or something that causes that feeling.

  * Weather is "寒い". You can get "寒い" after touching a "冷たい" thing. The atmosphere of a situation can be "寒い" (if many "冷たい" people are present).

> 水が冷たかったから私は寒いです。  
>  'The water was cold, now I'm cold.'

"Warm" has the to-the-touch differentiation only in its writing. "熱い" is
hotter than "暖かい". "暖かい" implies a good feeling usually, while "熱い" can mean
unpleasantly hot.

  * Weather is "暑い" or "暖かい", while coffee would be "熱い" or "温かい".
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Consulting the yahoo.co.jp dictionary definitions for
[寒い](http://dic.yahoo.co.jp/dsearch?enc=UTF-8&p=%E5%AF%92%E3%81%84&dtype=0&dname=0na&stype=0&index=09049507439400&pagenum=1)
and
[冷たい](http://dic.yahoo.co.jp/dsearch?enc=UTF-8&p=%E5%86%B7%E3%81%9F%E3%81%84&dtype=0&dname=0na&stype=0&pagenum=1&index=15059512480700),
we can see that the difference between the two is that 寒い is an unpleasant
sensation of low temperature, whereas 冷たい is merely an observation that the
temperature of something is lower than normal. So it would seem that 寒い is
more subjective (because one person's 寒い might be pleasant to someone else),
but 冷たい is an objective judgment of cold.
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Another use: **People** can be つめたい, exactly as in English: Being cold to
someone, by having no empathy or being unfriendly. Usually written such as
心が冷たい.
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