Jisho.org defines both 住む and 生く as ‘to live’. While I was talking to my language exchange partner, she used both of these in a sentence to describe different aspects of life. I was asking her about the difference living in Canada vs Japan and she said:
日本は清潔でとても住みやすいが、日常生活でのストレスがカナダに比べて多いので生きにくい。
清潔 (せいけつ) cleanliness
日常生活 (にちじょうせいかつ) daily life
Japan is clean and very easy to live in, but it is hard to live in because of the stress in daily life compared to Canada.
I thought this was interesting and I just thought I’d share. I’m still not 100% on when you’d use each particular verb. Also, it’s probably time for me to start using a Japanese dictionary…
5 comments
住む means “to live” in the sense of situating yourself in a place so that you may inhabit it in your daily life (i.e., “to reside”).
生きる is more about actually passing time while in the state of being alive.
Also, yes. 生きる and not 生く. 生く is archaic.
I learned that 住む also means to reside somewhere which means living at a certain place. Maybe 生く means living in general and can be used to describe a way of living or how life is.
I hope that someone can give a more precise answer to this question. Maybe there is even one someone posted some time ago. . .
住む means “to live” as in “to reside”.
生きる means “to live” as in “to be alive”.
生く is the archaic terminal form of 生きる and is only seen now in certain proper names (e.g. 生玉 いくたま in Osaka).
I think when you say 生き(いき)にくい, the 生きる implies live with mental stability.
As it’s with にくい as the meaning of “hard to 〜”, 生きにくい means “hard to live with mental stability”.
Compared with that, the 住む(すむ) in this case indicates the material aspect.
In general, 住む is focused on setting up a place of residence and live there, while 生きる is focused on sustaining life on an ongoing basis, but sometimes you can use them interchangeably.
Just so you know, there’s another word 暮らす(くらす), and it also means “live”.
You can use it like 住むand 生きる.
今(いま)は家族(かぞく)と東京(とうきょう)で暮らして(くらして)います。
I’m living in Tokyo with my family now.
この給料(きゅうりょう)では、暮らして(くらして)いけないよ。
I can’t live on this salary.
I think it’s originally based on 日(ひ)が暮れる (くれる) / The sun sets.
So it has more specific nuance that you spend your time until the dun sets and live your days.
what they’ve said – also in my wanikani it translates 住む as also “to dwell” and several vocabulary words build off that (dweller and address, for example)
生きる I’ll always remember from the Kurosawa movie – 🙂