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My text book has the following examples:

Ichiban suki na nomimono wa mizu desu.
My favorite drink is water.

Okiniiri no tabemono wa piza desu.
My favorite food is pizza.

What's the difference between "Okiniiri no" and "Ichiban suki na"?

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  • I think it'd be more like "Pizza is one of my favourite foods". – Earthliŋ♦ Oct 16 '16 at 15:11
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Essentially the difference is one thing (一番好【いちばんす】きな) vs more than one thing (お気【き】に入【い】りの).

The way I see it here in Japan the 一番好きな phrase is powerful and states your most liked item/thing/etc. (singular/単数)

You can think of it as "like most" instead of "favorite". When comparing the degree you like something in Japanese this would have the figurative gold star next to it.

Then we have the お気に入り phrase which I like to think of as a list of things you have stowed away in box. (multiple things/リスト的・複数【ふくすう】)

A good example would be your bookmarks in your browser; when you find a something on the internet you like you go up to the top and press the o kini iri / お気に入り button. However, if you were asked what your favorite site is you wouldn't show them a list of all your bookmarks right? That would be the use of the "ichiban suki na no ha" phrase, not the o kini iri phrase.

However, if someone asked you.

"Show me your top 10 favorite websites."

That would be where you would use the お気に入り phrase. You could say,

あなたのお気に入りのウェブサイト、トップ１０を教えて！

or

気に入っているトップ１０ウェブサイトを教えてください。

Hope this helped.

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  • How are your sentences different from あなたの好きなウェブサイト、トップ１０を教えて！ / 好きなトップ１０ウェブサイトを教えてください。？ – Chocolate♦ Oct 16 '16 at 23:32
  • @chocolate I don't understand what you are trying to say. I am just trying to provide two different ways to state the same thing for the person who asked the question for reference. – ConstantFun Oct 17 '16 at 16:14
  • I just asked: What's the difference between あなたのお気に入りのウェブサイト、トップ１０を教えて！/ 気に入っているトップ１０ウェブサイトを教えてください。 AND あなたの好きなウェブサイト、トップ１０を教えて！ / 好きなトップ１０ウェブサイトを教えてください。--- わかんないんだったら別にいいです。 – Chocolate♦ Oct 18 '16 at 0:54
  • @chocolate 聞いている人が一番好きなこととお気に入りしていることの違いを聞いているから、あなたの質問だと「好きな」と「お気に入り」との違いはないけど、「一番好きな」と「お気に入り」を比較すると「一番好きな」のが単数的なニュアンスがある。そして「お気に入り」の方が複数的なニュアンスがある。納得できました？ – ConstantFun Oct 18 '16 at 4:27
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I think you can roughly equate

  • 一番好きな ichiban suki na = my [most] favourite
  • お気に入りの okiniiri no = one of my favourites

so that

Ichiban suki na nomimono wa mizu desu.
My favourite drink is water.

Okiniiri no tabemono wa piza desu.
Pizza is one of my favourite foods.

You can have several okiniiri no things, but only one ichiban suki na thing.

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  • Now we should compare 一番好きだ (一番好きな～) and 一番のお気に入りだ (一番気に入っている～)...　or maybe just 好き and お気に入り... – Chocolate♦ Oct 16 '16 at 23:26
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    @chocolate Right. 一番好き is about 20-30 times as common as 一番のお気に入り. (From the Balanced Corpus of Contemporary Written Japanese.) 好きな vs. お気に入りの seems to be more subtle, because 好き can be used to mean many different things. – Earthliŋ♦ Oct 17 '16 at 6:25
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    そうですね, I think the difference is subtle, depending on the context... I (personally) think... [好]{この}みの味 is like "my kind of taste / the flavor that fits my taste", お気に入りの味 is like "a certain taste that I recently/currently like and have been trying often", and 好きな味, "the taste I like", has a broader sense. I think this mostly applies to people, too, eg 女性: 好みの女性 "my type", お気に入りの女性 "a certain girl that I recently like/favor", and 好きな女性, "a girl I like / am in love with," can be used for many situations. – Chocolate♦ Oct 18 '16 at 9:40
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According to the dictionary 好き and 気に入る are synonymous.
They mean the same thing.
好き = 気に入ること
http://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/jn/117532/meaning/m0u/%E5%A5%BD%E3%81%8D/

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