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I often see words in sentences written in カタカナ or 漢字 that could be swapped for
a **common** word of the other form. I am aware that there are lots of カタカナ
words that do have a 漢字 form, but where the 漢字 form is not commonly used.

I was looking up how to translate the word "tattoo" and found that both 「タトゥー」
and 「入れ墨・刺青」seem to be used interchangeably.「 **タトゥー** といっても本当に **刺青**
ではなく、簡単に貼って落とせる水転写シールです。」 I'm sure there are better examples then my tattoo
one, but you get the idea.

Is there a rule/method for deciding which form to use? Maybe level of
politeness/familiarity with the other person, or medium of communication would
lead to the decision?

(I found both [What determines whether a word gets a kanji compound or
katakana?](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/6061/what-determines-
whether-a-word-gets-a-kanji-compound-or-katakana) and [When writing for
general public, is there a general guideline for selecting
kanji?](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/3733/when-writing-for-
general-public-is-there-a-general-guideline-for-selecting-kanj) questions very
informative, but I don't feel they addresses this facet of the kanji/katakana
choice relationship)
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word-choice kanji katakana
Method for deciding whether to use katakana or kanji version of the word?
I don't think there is a method to decide.

For the case you mention, タトゥー is probably more thought of as Western tattoo,
whereas 刺青 is the Japanese counterpart, more likely to be associated with the
Japanese culture of tattoos (see
[Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irezumi)), including associations to
criminality, or tradition, as the case may be.

There is レッスン vs. 授業, ウォーキング vs. 散歩, ad infinitum. All these word pairs are
not pairs of pure synonyms. Both parts of such a word pair continue to
coexist, because they convey something different. In broad terms, the カタカナ
words have an air of modernism and the 漢字 words sound more traditional, but
being fond of tradition in Japan doesn't make the Japanese/Chinese-derived
word more appropriate. I think many beginners (including myself) prefer to use
漢字 for words which are better written in かな, or even have a more appropriate
外来語 counterpart.

Talking to elderly people, some of the newer カタカナ words (like タトゥー) may not be
as easily understood, so then the Japanese/Chinese-derived words would be the
better choice. But in general it really does depend on the word you are
thinking of.

An almost unrelated phenomenon is that plants and animals are often written in
カタカナ (e.g. カマキリ vs. 蟷螂). Here, the word is the same and the choice of カタカナ vs.
漢字 is only a matter of taste or context, not a matter of meaning. As for カマキリ,
sometimes these words are 義訓 readings, i.e. the choice of 漢字 is not related to
the reading. Recently, we had [サルスベリ vs.
百日紅](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/8241/what-are-some-words-
with-kanji-readings-meanings-that-dont-match). Sometimes the reading is just
the 訓読み of the 漢字 for the plant or animal, but still, especially in a
scientific context, the word is written in カタカナ, e.g. シラカバ for 白樺 "Japanese
white birch".
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answer