# "Frog" and "Home" in Japanese **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 6, 2011, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frog-and-home-in-japanese/573701 "2011-03-06T20:37:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![WarmNPrickly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d78d45/32.png) [@WarmNPrickly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WarmNPrickly)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2011, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frog-and-home-in-japanese/573701/1 "2011-03-06T20:37:55Z")
I’ve often heard that the word “frog” and the word “home” are written the same way in Japanese. I also know that a lot of these language things are often a little more complicated than that. Often, when you mention it to a native speaker, it turns out that it isn’t really true, or only true with bad grammar. What is the scoop on “frog” and “home” in Japanese? ---
**Author:** ![KlondikeGeoff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3e96dc/32.png) [@KlondikeGeoff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KlondikeGeoff)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2011, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frog-and-home-in-japanese/573701/2 "2011-03-06T20:58:33Z")
I just asked my Japanese wife about this. She says definitely not the same character used for both words. ---
**Author:** ![hibernicus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hibernicus/32/2802_2.png) [@hibernicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hibernicus)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2011, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frog-and-home-in-japanese/573701/3 "2011-03-06T21:03:42Z")
“kaeru” meaning “frog” is not written the same way as “kaeru” meaning “return home”. The two words are, as far as I know, pronounced exactly the same way.　There are lots of homophones in Japanese but the writing system allows them to be distinguished in writing. frog: カエル return home: 帰る ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2011, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frog-and-home-in-japanese/573701/4 "2011-03-06T21:14:33Z")
> [@hibernicus](#): > > “kaeru” meaning “frog” is not written the same way as “kaeru” meaning “return home”. The two words are, as far as I know, pronounced exactly the same way.　There are lots of homophones in Japanese but the writing system allows them to be distinguished in writing. > > frog: カエル > return home: 帰る There’s no kanji for “frog”? ---
**Author:** ![Spectralist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Spectralist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectralist)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2011, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frog-and-home-in-japanese/573701/5 "2011-03-06T21:29:57Z")
According to my dictionary 蛙 is the kanji for frog. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2011, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frog-and-home-in-japanese/573701/6 "2011-03-06T21:34:16Z")
Oh, and why is \*kaeru \*(frog) written in katakana? ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2011, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frog-and-home-in-japanese/573701/7 "2011-03-06T21:45:23Z")
> [@Spectralist](#): > > According to my dictionary 蛙 is the kanji for frog. Yes, but it’s not on the lists of commonly used kanji. What I don’t understand is why “kaeru” is written in katakana, when it’s not a foreign word. ---
**Author:** ![EKDS5k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c5a1d2/32.png) [@EKDS5k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EKDS5k)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2011, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frog-and-home-in-japanese/573701/8 "2011-03-06T22:32:47Z")
> [@Giles](#): > > Yes, but it’s not on the lists of commonly used kanji. What I don’t understand is why “kaeru” is written in katakana, when it’s not a foreign word. It’s pretty common to write animals in katakana. Also sound effects. As mentioned, “frog” and “return home” are pronounced the same, but written differently. “Home” is different altogether (ie), but I’m not on a computer that has Japanese language support so I can’t write it out. I’m not sure what the big surprise is. Every language, including English, has tons of words that are spelled the same, pronounced the same, or both, or are similar, or whatever, and still have totally different meanings. ---
**Author:** ![hibernicus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hibernicus/32/2802_2.png) [@hibernicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hibernicus)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2011, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frog-and-home-in-japanese/573701/9 "2011-03-06T22:47:08Z")
The Japanese names of plants and animals are written in katakana, with few exceptions (extremely common words like dog or horse). Would many Japanese people recognise the kanji for rhino (犀) or octopus (蛸)? I don’t know. I was wrong about the pronunciation. The two words have different pitch accents. I (like most foreign learners) don’t have a clue about the correct pitch accent of Japanese words. It’s complicated by the fact that the pitch accent in my wife’s dialect is different to that of standard Japanese. ---
**Author:** ![Hokkaido\_Brit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/d26b3c/32.png) [@Hokkaido\_Brit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hokkaido_Brit)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2011, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frog-and-home-in-japanese/573701/10 "2011-03-06T23:53:40Z")
But the two things are recognised to sound the same even here. My son’s after school club has a big wooden frog at the entrance that is holding a sign that says “Ki wo tsukete kaeru!” which means either “Be careful going home!” or “The frog is careful.” There are lots of puns made on such words that are similar. Puns are considered a low form of wit, often referred to as “Oyaji gyagu” or “Geezer’s gags” but I like them because I can understand them and sometimes even make them up myself, though my kids usually groan. ---
**Author:** ![WarmNPrickly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d78d45/32.png) [@WarmNPrickly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WarmNPrickly)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2011, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frog-and-home-in-japanese/573701/11 "2011-03-07T00:49:35Z")
I see. So they don’t sound exactly alike, but it’s a recognized relationship in Japan. That’s good enough then. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2011, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frog-and-home-in-japanese/573701/12 "2011-03-07T01:19:06Z")
> [@hibernicus](#): > > The Japanese names of plants and animals are written in katakana, with few exceptions (extremely common words like dog or horse). Would many Japanese people recognise the kanji for rhino (犀) or octopus (蛸)? I don’t know. Good point about Kanji not use very frequently, but I think the question was not why are they written in kana, but why in katakana as oppposed to hiragana? If it’s just the way it is, that’s OK. Lots of languages do things for no apparent reason other than “it’s always been done that way”. ---
**Author:** ![hibernicus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hibernicus/32/2802_2.png) [@hibernicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hibernicus)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2011, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frog-and-home-in-japanese/573701/13 "2011-03-07T01:32:18Z")
I found a very interesting [forum discussion](http://forum.koohii.com/viewtopic.php?id=6522) that addresses this exact question. Basically, nobody knows. One poster guesses that: > [@](#): > > …at some point in the development of the Japanese language the naming of animals and plants was considered a scientific/techincal endeavor whose product was worth being set off from the rest of the text. ---
**Author:** ![Isamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7c8e57/32.png) [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2011, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frog-and-home-in-japanese/573701/14 "2011-03-07T02:39:48Z")
There was even a TV commercial in Japan a few years ago that played upon the similarity. A young couple on a date misunderstanding each other with regards to “I’m going home”, “frog” and “I’m buying it”. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2011, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frog-and-home-in-japanese/573701/15 "2011-03-07T04:19:48Z")
But you could write “going home” in katakana, right (even if in practice it’s not usually done)? And if you did, wouldn’t it be the same as the katakana for “frog”? ---
**Author:** ![PlainJain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/5daacb/32.png) [@PlainJain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PlainJain)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2011, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frog-and-home-in-japanese/573701/16 "2011-03-07T05:17:55Z")
Maybe baby wax frog? ---
**Author:** ![KinkiNipponTourist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e9bcb4/32.png) [@KinkiNipponTourist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KinkiNipponTourist)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2011, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frog-and-home-in-japanese/573701/17 "2011-03-07T06:40:11Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > But you could write “going home” in katakana, right (even if in practice it’s not usually done)? And if you did, wouldn’t it be the same as the katakana for “frog”? Yep! ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2011, 6:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frog-and-home-in-japanese/573701/18 "2011-03-07T06:53:29Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > But you could write “going home” in katakana, right (even if in practice it’s not usually done)? And if you did, wouldn’t it be the same as the katakana for “frog”? You _could_, but it may not be understood unless it’s clear the entire sentence (or large portions of it) is written in katakana for some reason. You might do this when you’re trying to indicate poor Japanese spoken by a non-native speaker. Or it may be a telegram message (which used to be all-katakana). ---
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2011, 7:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frog-and-home-in-japanese/573701/19 "2011-03-07T07:28:49Z")
> [@Hokkaido\_Brit](#): > > But the two things are recognised to sound the same even here. My son’s after school club has a big wooden frog at the entrance that is holding a sign that says “Ki wo tsukete kaeru!” which means either “Be careful going home!” or “The frog is careful.” > > There are lots of puns made on such words that are similar. Puns are considered a low form of wit, often referred to as “Oyaji gyagu” or “Geezer’s gags” but I like them because I can understand them and sometimes even make them up myself, though my kids usually groan. Yup, in the manga One Piece there are a lot of these sorts of puns. Once the main characters were on a sea train going towards a prison to rescue two of their friends and the conversation more or less went: “Kaeru!” “WHAT!? We’ve gone all this way and you want to turn back NOW!?” “No, kaeru!” _points to giant frog sitting on the tracks_ Most of them are eyeroll worthy, even if you feel proud of yourself for getting them, but they’re juuuust clever enough to get a grin. So yeah, even if the inflections are different I’d say that the majority of Japanese people would consider them close enough to at least be joke worthy. Though, sliiightly off topic, does kaeru mean “to return home” or “to return” in general? For instance, if I was at school could I say 牛乳を買って帰りましょうか\*。“gyunyuu wo katte kaerimashouka?” “Shall I go buy milk and come back (to school)?” Clearly it’s most often used to imply home in some fashion (I’ve heard Japanese people refer to going to Japan in general as “nihon ni kaerimashita” even if they strictly didn’t go to their home town), but the frog pun in One Piece makes less sense to me since all of them were about 450 chapters away from anything they could consider “home.” - Apologies if this is mangled, it’s been a few months. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2011, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frog-and-home-in-japanese/573701/20 "2011-03-07T14:07:40Z")
It’s a question of convention. Biology terms are written in _katakana_. Note that “human” in “human genome” is written in _katakana_ where is is normally written in _kanji_. > [@WarmNPrickly](#): > > I see. So they don’t sound exactly alike, but it’s a recognized relationship in Japan. That’s good enough then. Except for [the pitch accent](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_pitch_accent), they sound exactly the same. Very few non-native speakers have mastered Japanese pitch accents. > [@Chronos](#): > > But you could write “going home” in katakana, right (even if in practice it’s not usually done)? And if you did, wouldn’t it be the same as the katakana for “frog”? Yes, because the pronunciation is the same, and the _kana_ does not indicate pitch accents. > [@scr4](#): > > You _could_, but it may not be understood unless it’s clear the entire sentence (or large portions of it) is written in katakana for some reason. You might do this when you’re trying to indicate poor Japanese spoken by a non-native speaker. Or it may be a telegram message (which used to be all-katakana). To add to this, since “going home” would normally be written either in kanji or _hirakana_, writing it in _katakana_ would convey that there is a special reason for it. > [@Jragon](#): > > Though, sliiightly off topic, does kaeru mean “to return home” or “to return” in general? Yes. It means both. It also means “frog” 😛 Depending on the circumstances, it can be to return home or to another place. For example, if you are with a colleague at a customer’s place and go to leave, you could say, 帰りましょう。 “kaerimasho” meaning “Let’s go back to the office.” If however, your colleague suggests going out for drinks, you can decline by saying 今日、帰ります。 “I’m going (home) tonight.” If you were going to back to the office to work then you would say 今日、戻ります。“I’m going back (to the office) tonight.” If you think of it as “come / go back,” it may make sense. It is frequently used for people coming back to Japan, and doesn’t mean going back to their home. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frog-and-home-in-japanese/573701.md?page=2)