20 Examples of Talking About Your Hometown
We normally talk about our hometown after getting to know someone more and more or when we first met a person such as “Where are you from?”, “My hometown is ____”, “I’m from ____.”, etc. Could you explain where you were born and answer when someone asks your hometown? Let me introduce how you correctly explain about your hometown today!
故郷(kokyou) / 出生地(shusseichi)
Hometown / Birthplace
故郷 is hometown and 出生地 is birthplace. The difference between them is that using 出生地 is a more specific place where you were born than using 故郷. That means when native speakers use 出生地, they basically talk about specific places such as Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Hokkaido and etc, unlike 故郷. However, 故郷 can be sometimes used as the meaning of 出生地. For your information, although “出身” can be used as the meaning of “出生地“, it is used as the meaning of “Which university did you go to?”. The way to ask someone’s “hometown/birthplace” is ご出身はどちらになりますか?(Where are you from?) which is the most polite way and can be used to your boss as well. And 出身はどこですか?(Where are you from?) is a basic way to ask someone such as teachers, clerks, colleges and so on. And どこ出身なの? or どこ出身?(Where are you from?) is used only for your friends which is so casual. When putting “ご” such as ご出身 instead of 出身, it sounds more polite. Native speakers don’t usually use “出生地はどこですか?” which sounds pretty weird. Again, ご出身はどちらになりますか?(politest), 出身はどちらになりますか?(more polite), 出身はどこですか?(normal), どこ出身なの?(casual), どこ出身?(so casual) that sound native speakers if you use them depending on what the situations are. Additionally, 生まれも育ちも ___です means “I was born and raised in _____.” Lastly, some people use 故郷 as the writing word and use 故郷 as the spoken word. These Kanji are the same though.













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