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Is there any difference between 汗をかく and 発汗する? Are there any subtle nuances
between the two or is one more common than the other? I've checked WWWJDIC and
I can't find any way to distinguish between the two.
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2016-04-21T02:38:00.470
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2018-05-04T23:02:45.330
2018-05-04T23:02:45.330
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question
meaning word-choice words wago-and-kango
汗をかくvs 発汗する - is there a difference?
The Sino-Japanese 発汗{はっかん}する 'perspire' sounds more like a formal, technical
term, like you might find in a medical context. It isn't particularly common
in normal speech. Imagine saying this in English:

> Man, I just ran five miles! I **perspired** so much!

Sounds pretty silly, right? The first sentence sounds like casual English, but
then I use the Latinate _perspire_ in my next sentence, and it seems really
out of place. It sounds too formal or technical for casual speech, like
something out of a medical textbook.

Something like this would be more natural:

> Man, I just ran five miles! I really worked up a **sweat**!

Similarly, 発汗{はっかん} 'perspiration' just isn't the basic term for 'sweat' in
Japanese. If you just want to talk about sweat in normal speech, the native
Japanese 汗 'sweat' is much more common, and 汗をかく is a simple and common phrase
meaning 'to sweat'.
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2016-04-21T03:01:00.457
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2016-04-21T03:17:03.800
2016-04-21T03:17:03.800
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answer