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Can you give an example of when 帰る should be used instead of 戻る, and vice
versa?

The reason I ask is that I sometimes get corrected when using the two, such as
in:

> × そのとき私は日本から **戻って** きて、大学に **戻って** 入りました。 (ignore the other problems with
> this ☺)  
>  ○ そのとき私は日本から **帰って** きて、大学に **戻りました** 。
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2011-06-03T12:02:13.050
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2015-12-16T01:33:35.107
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question
word-choice direction
What are the differences between 帰る and 戻る?
Examples would be

  * 仕事に戻る。(go back to work from appointment or something)

  * 家に帰る。(go back to home, (when there is no plan in mind to go back to same place for today))

  * 財布忘れたので家に一旦戻る。（Forgot the wallet and go back to home once (need to go back same route again)）
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2011-06-03T12:04:18.463
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answer
For an English speaker, 'お店に戻ってパイをもう一杯食べてから帰ります。' [I'm going back to the shop
for another pie, then going home.] may be a good example using both verbs.

Many languages have idioms relating to 'home'. In English, we miss out the
preposition 'to'. Japanese doesn't seem to need '家に' with '帰ります'.

'プレゼントを返します。' [I'm returning a gift.] uses another verb [at least different
kanji], while English can use the same verb 'return' for all three.
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