How does one say "tall" and "expensive" in Nihongo? Aren't they the same?

Question

If they are indeed the same, and the kanji is even the same, then how does one differentiate between the two??

Answer 1

I don't remember hearing "Ano hito wa takai." for "That person is tall." When talking about people, I either hear "se ga takai" (tall height) or more often just "ookii" (big). For buildings and so on a simple "takai" is used, so as others have pointed out, context is key.

The most confusing use of "takai", in my experience, is "hana ga takai" (high/tall nose) which is often used literally to describe caucasians and figuratively to say someone is a snob. I could never understand what the high part referred to until it was explained that it means the nose comes out farther from your face. It finally made sense when I realized you have to be lying down to see it this way.

Answer 2

Tall is "takai"

Expensive is "takai"

I don't know about the Kanji difference yet, but I'll edit this answer in a few hours when I find out.

But the way to differentiate, is just..use the context of the sentence it is spoken in or the circumstances in which the word(s) are spoken.

=D

Answer 3

Yes, they are the same [takai] but you just take it in context. How do English speakers no the difference between words that sound alike when they speak? Because of the context.

Plus, the Japanese love puns and I'm sure some "terrific" jokers love to find something tall and expensive when shopping to "wow" their friends.

Answer 4

they are the same in kanji,,
but we do say.. ano hito wa takai.or ano hito no se ga takai the man is tall.
and nedan wa takai, which means it is expensive,
価格は高い nedan wa takai. the price is expensive.
人は高い ano hito wa takai. or ano hito no se ga takai. the man is tall.
その建物は高い sono tatemono wa takai that building is high
source: dictionary
as you speak to the person you certainly pick a subject and to japanese people they are not hard to understand but to foreign nationals we look at this word similar..It was just a rhetorical sentence What seems redundant to us may look quite natural to the Japanese. :)
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takai = three main meanings: high, tall, expensive
this is a sample of a posting where an answerer gave an answer..they do not really mentioned se ga takai when referring to height..there are more but i just try to pick one..
Re: Japanese adjectives... inflected!!
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Hi, Artrella, I'll try to answer your question.
In a Japanese sentence where there's an adjective, there can be no verb at all.
e.g. I'm tall. = watashiwa takai.
I tall
there's no equivalent of 'am'.
I was tall. = watashiwa takakatta.
I tall (katta is the inflectional suffix indicating past tense.)

sometimes constructing a Japanese sentence is confusing, the longer you stay there, the more you would learn and what mentioned here might not same to others. hope you have fun learning Japanese. All answerers gave you a good point about this. time for you to study your lesson..
good day!

Answer 5

Differentiate via the contextual clues.
i.e.

Kono conputa- wa takai desu! このコンプターが高い
Kono hitu wa takai desu!　この人が高い

Answer 6

I think its the same, but you just need to rely on context

Answer 7

高い = takai, sei no takai - tall
高い = takai, kookana - expensive

Answer 8

gotta rely on context in situations like this...

take the english 'two' 'to' and 'too' for example