混ざる・混じる confusion

[smrq]

I don’t really understand the difference between these words, and neither the example sentences nor Google has helped. They both just seem like an intransitive version of “mix”. When would you use one vs. the other?

To complicate things further, on Imabi I read this:

http://www.imabi.net/intransitivevspassive.htm

混ざる・混じる vs 混ぜられる

まざる and まじる both mean “to be blended/mixed.” まざる is closer to “to be blended” whereas まじる is closer to “to be mixed.” The use of the character 混 is to emphasize things being mixed but technically separate whereas the character 交 is used to emphasize that things are blended together as one. Both まざる and まじる have zero volition. It is まぜられる that you need to use for when things are mixed together with an active agent.

The bolded sentence sounds exactly backwards to me—is Imabi wrong? WaniKani? My brain for thinking they are contradictory?

[Leebo]

Do you mean 混ざる in the title? 混ぜる is transitive.

Here’s a question and answer in Japanese.

　“混ざる”と“混じる”

And for what it’s worth, here’s a different post about the differences in kanji, which agrees with you.

「交じる」と「混じる」「雑じる」の違い

Googling with the word 違い included will get you plenty of results of this sort, in the future.

[smrq]

Do you mean 混ざる in the title? 混ぜる is transitive.

Yep, edited. Stupid fingers. And eyes.

Googling with the word 違い included will get you plenty of results of this sort, in the future.

Cool, thanks for teaching me to fish. And 「違い」 itself is only ever so slightly above my level

[Leebo]

No problem.

And just to summarize the first link, yes they’re both intransitive and mean essentially the same thing, but there are some subtle nuances. And also situations where you can use one but not the other. These examples are given in the post.