Which of these would you say is more commonly used? I was learning 玉 on wanikani as ball but I recently bought a japanese dictionary that listed ball as ボール. When is it usually more appropriate to use the latter instead of the former and vice-versa?
Someone more knowledgeable will hopefully chime in later on, but I get the vibe that ボール is a bit bigger (think football, tennis ball etc) while 玉 is more like marbe or similar. Both can be called ball in English though.
たま can also be written 弾 and mean bullet.
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Perhaps more than you asked for, wanted or needed, but you’ve also got 球 (きゅう) that at least appears in a bunch of compound words and means ball/globe/sphere as well, like 地球 (ちきゅう the Earth), 野球 (やきゅう baseball) and 電球 (でんきゅう light bulb).
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Thanks for your help!
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