Sometimes i happen to find on some texts the world 唄 instead of 歌, but when i search it on the vucabolary i find the second one. Something similar also happened for the kanji 川 and 河, which both means river. Are those just synonymes or are the the same kanji with two different ways of being written?
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Those are just synonyms lol. Just looked it up myself bc I never knew about this. Kanji have similar meanings, so people apparently use them to write the same words sometimes
There are a few kanji like that, they mean a similar enough thing for them to effectively be considered the same word, and they pretty much are interchangeable. Usually there is a more generic and common form – in this case I’d say 歌 is – and slightly more specific forms, such as 唄 (in this case having a maybe more emotional or atmospheric tone), or 詩 for a poetic tone. There are a few other related like 謳, 詠, 謡 which have more specific uses, you won’t see these as often. You should pick up the nuance by seeing what contexts they appear in/what other words they are part of, and a few dictionaries describe the differences.
Some examples off the top of my head.
いい・よい：良い、善い、好い、佳い
わかる：分かる、判る、解る
すでに：既に、已に
Others can correct me if I’m wrong, but my understanding is that 唄 while a close synonym to 歌, implies an element of “Tradition” or “High Artistry” that 歌 alone does not imply. For example songs with a shamisen, or those sung in feudal Japanese courts, or sung/spoken poetry.
唄 is more poetic I think
Chinese brought with it a lot of kanji with similar or identical meanings, Japanese had to choose which ones to use. They eventually settled on things like 歌 and 川, but it wasn’t a direct process. If you look at old texts you will find plenty of cases using the “alternative” ones before they made up their minds.