Frustrating Synonyms
 

Today I encountered one of my personally most irritating synonyms, and it got me thinking... There must be a lot of others that are frustrating to learners of Japanese.
I invite everyone to toss out their most frustrating, and tell about why it is personally frustrating. It doesn't have to be a perfect synonym - words that are very close in sound or in writing are fine as well.

To start it off, I will list my own.

私立 vs. 市立
They are both read as しりつ... But they have nearly opposite meanings.
私立 is private... Like a private school, or a privately run/funded facility.
市立, on the other hand, is a public, city run facility.

Normally you don't encounter them in situations where they would be mistaken for each other that often. 国立 (nationally run) is a lot more common than 市立.
However, close to me there is a 市立図書館 and a 私立図書館. There is a 私立保育園 and a 市立保育園. A 私立幼稚園 and a 市立幼稚園. A 市立病院 and a 私立病院...

And people will say しりつの方 as if that helps. And it isn't just me who has trouble with this. I have watched other native speakers have a conversation like this:
今日病院行かないと
どこの？ 買い物行くから送っとくか？
しりつの方
どっちの？ 駅近くの？
いや、高速向こうのしりつ

No wonder しりつ always confused me.

Synonyms or homonyms? 「私立」 and 「 市立」 are of the latter kind, I think.

Anyway, with those two words, we do something around Tokyo that you do not around Nagoya to avoid possible confusions. We purposefully "mis-read" 「市立」 as 「いちりつ」 in conversations where we foresee a possible confusion. (And I just found out that you can get 「市立」 by typing 「いちりつ」, too.)

Technically, they're homophones.

Homo = same
nym = name

So two words being homonyms means they have the same spelling (and pronunciation).

Homographs (graph = writing) are words spelled the same irrespective of pronunciation (see "read" and "read" where one is the past tense and one is present tense of the verb "to read").

Homophones (phone = sound) are words pronounced the same irrespective of writing (a car tire and the verb tire, which is what happens as you run a marathon (and, FWIW, Angles and non-native speakers alike, "tire" is how we Yanks spell "tyre")).

These words may not be fully intended for a Japanese context, however, since both words have the kana written form しりつ (i.e., the same) but different kanji forms. So do they have the same written form or not? ;)

They're definitely homophones, though (same pronunciation). That is, unless you're going to tell me, like 箸 and 橋, they have different pitch accent.

*takes off his pedant hat*

Personally I always have problem with my pronunciation of コンニャク and 婚約.

(And, for what it's worth, I didn't even notice the "synonym" mistake until masaegu pointed it out. I guess here's an instance of two native speakers getting brutally pwned by a non-native speaker.)

Info: Homonym - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Personally, I like capitonyms, words that change in meaning when you capitalize the first letter (e.g., I polish the silver, which was given to me by my Polish grandmother).

I don't want to sound like a nazi grammar, but they are homophones.
Homophone - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Presumably, a "nazi grammar" would be a book written in German, right? Or maybe the evil twin of the guy who plays Frasier Crane on Cheers...

ROTFL.
I meant grammar nazi... that is what I get for typing so fast.

Anyway, back to the main topic, are these homophones too usual?
I remember reading that the government tried to stop using kanji and kana, and use romaji instead, but the homophones were the main issue.

This is kind of similar, but as a learner I can have a hard time remembering the correct meaning of words when there are two words that just switch the Kanji and change meaning... Like 中心 and　心中 or　温室 and　室温

Obviously it isn't too hard to figure it out with context, but sometimes I'm presented with a "What does X mean?" situation and my brain can't remember which is which.

Also, as soon as I read the topic title the first thing I thought of was 私立・市立 believe it or not.

I think we often read 「私立」 as 'わたくしりつ' in daily conversations (only in Kansai area?).

I often hear 'いちりつ', but I also think we often say like 'きょうとしりつ（京都市立）' or 'おおさかしりつ（大阪市立）' adding the name of the city before '市立' (again only in Kansai area?).

And that is what I get for posting in the middle of the night while in bed. :)

I know they are homonyms and not synonyms. *sigh* Oh well, I suppose it happens to all of us sometimes.

Anyway, to return to the actual topic and not linger on my 2AM mistake...

I rarely hear anyone use わたくし立 in conversation, and have never heard いち立 from what I can recall.
The most distinction people around here give it is occasionally using 私立 vs 市の. But that doesn't help when the actual name of the place is 市立-something something.

I think this problem is particularly prevalent in my area as it fairly recently became a 市. All the formerly 町立 facilities have just had their names changed over to 市立.