Quote:
Originally Posted by Maxful
Hi masaegu san, I would like to know what are the differences between 牛乳、ミルク、and お乳?
From what I know (but I could be wrong), 牛乳 is equivalent to "Cow milk", ミルク is equivalent to "Milk" and "Creamer" and お乳 is equivalent to "Breast milk".
But I am curious to know if I should use ミルク or お乳 when referring to human breast milk and milk of goat?
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Not masaegu, but I'll take a crack at it what I can answer.
牛乳 is specifically cow milk. The two kanji there are 牛 (cow) and 乳 (milk).
ミルク is commercially sold milk, usually cow's milk, according to Wiktionary. I don't think you can use ミルク for human breast milk.
お乳 is any type of milk: human, goat, etc.
Another word for milk is 母乳 (mother's milk). I wonder how that one is related to the others.
Wikipedia authors use 母乳 from what I can tell (it's more technical/scientific than お乳 from what I gather), and in the article on 乳房 (breast), it claims お乳 is a synonym for breast as well (and if you drop the お, it's another way).
For those who are curious, the readings of all these kanji are
お乳（ちち）
母乳（ぼにゅう）
牛乳（ぎゅうにゅう）
乳房（にゅうぼう）