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[–] 9 points 1 year ago (10 children)

Well the Japanese need to be more specific because they're very different.

I can't imaging how hard it is to Google specifically rat or specifically mice questions there lmao

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  • I'm a native speaker of Mandarin (Chinese), where there's no rat/mouse distinction either. I know that in English they're different so I do say rat for big ones and mouse for small ones in English, but otherwise they're basically the same to me.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (7 children)

    The japanese simply don't make that distinction and it's not a problem for them

    Plenty of languages (including my Polish) don't make a distinction between town and city, and they don't have problems

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

    I feel like town and city is a little less consequential than two separate species

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Mice and rats are both generic names for multiple species

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    Yup, even the specific species names aren't consistent between languages. The species that is most commonly called African Soft Fur Rat (Mastomys natalensis) in English is called a "Vielzizenmaus" or "Mouse with many Nipples" in German. The German name is way better, they are more closely related to mice and their fur isn't that much softer than on any other rodent. I don't know how many nipples are a normal amount for rodents though, maybe they're perfectly average

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (2 children)

    Wait, aren't town and city the same thing?

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    Can also denote a difference in government styles: towns have a town council, cities have a mayor. Cities can be smaller than towns.

    This depends on your region, naturally.

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