So, when I learned these two words back during my high school study/minor, I always distinguished them as being “to wake up” and “to occur,” respectively. These are also the primary definitions offered by Wanikani.
However, in practical reading, I’ve seen a few instances of 起きる being used in the “to occur” sense. I see most dictionaries also list it as having an alternate definition of “to occur,” usually in reference to unfavorable events.
What’s the nuance here? Is 起こる the go-to for occurrences while 起きる is generally favored to convey displeasure? Thank you to anyone who can help me sort this out!
There is a slight nuance and image difference, that’s about it. Keep 発生する in mind too, you’ll hear that a lot in the news when there was an accident or something like that but using that in normal conversation is quite stiff.