How would I say "The place where I come from/where I come from"

Question

If wished to say "The weather where I come from is worse" i.e., the weather in the place where I come from, how would I say this naturally? Would I use 「故郷」、「出身地」、or is there a more natural way of saying this? Thanks

Answer 1

The phrase "where I come from" in English is kind of vague. Some people will use it to mean where they were born, some people will use it to mean where they grew up, and some people will use it to describe the place they currently live (which may be neither the place they were born nor the place they grew up).

Fortunately, Japanese has lots of options for you on this. I actually wasn't clear on some of the more fine grain differences myself, and used this article as a reference.

• 出生地 is literally "birthplace". This pretty explicitly means where you were born.
• 出身地 is slightly more general, and is probably closer to English's "place where one comes from", broadly meaning the place where you grew up. My impression is that like English, unless you specify otherwise, people also often assume you were born here. ＜どこか＞出身 is also a very common pattern; I.E. 東京出身 to mean you grew up in Tokyo.
• 地元 is "hometown" in the sense of being the place where most of your life is - job, social circle, sphere of influence, etc.
• 故郷 is "hometown" in the sense of being the place where you were born and raised.

That said, the these words are close enough together that the lines between their usages are fairly blurred, and native speakers may not always use them exactly in line with their dictionary definition. Anecdotally, I am fairly sure I've heard someone use 地元 to talk about the place where they grew up, despite living and working somewhere else. The article I referenced even mentions that this word in particular is starting to be used with basically the same meaning as 故郷.

To answer your original question, for broadly talking about "where one comes from", I would use 出身地.

Edit: Please make sure to also read through mackygoo's answer. I've addressed word choice here, but he has a lot of good stuff about natural language usage that better addresses the "how would I say" portion of the question.

Answer 2

English

"The weather where I come from is worse".

For example, this speaker is from "新潟{にいがた} Niigata as a famous snowy district" and this is the phrase used in a conversation in Tokyo in winter. In winter of Tokyo, it rarely rains or snows, and the fine weather continues, so it is dry. On the other hand, Niigata's weather in winter is cloudy or snowy every day, and there are very few sunny days.

Women/ladies would say for the given phrase like "私｛わたし｝の 郷里｛きょうり｝/住{す}んで居｛い｝たところ では天候｛てんこう｝/天気｛てんき｝はもっと悪｛わる｝いですわ。"
Students would say like "おれの 田舎{いなか}/おったところ はもっと天気は悪いよ/悪いぞ。"
Gentlemen would say "私の 郷里/住んで居たところ では天候/天気はもっと悪いです。"

There is a possibility that ladies and gentlemen would use 故郷｛ふるさと｝ for their hometown.
However, as for 出生地{しゅっせいち}, 出身地{しゅっしんち} or 故郷｛こきょう｝, they make sense completely, but I think that neither ladies, students nor gentlemen use them much in the above example phrase in a conversation.

The usage differs only for "地元｛じもと｝" that is introduced in Mindful's answer. "地元" may refer both to the place of your origin and to the place where you live right now, so when referring to the place of your origin like the above example phrase, we would use it together with the actual name of the hometown like "地元新潟".
Ladies and gentlemen would use 地元 like "私の地元新潟では天候/天気はもっと悪いです。"

For some reason, students do not use "天候" much, but they use "天気" instead.
Although it may be only my feeling, it is not a difference as a technical term, but "天候" may feel a bit more affected or elegant than "天気" so it may not be used in student-to-student conversation.
Ladies and gentlemen also seem not to use "天候" so much but they use "天気" more in daily conversations.

日本語

"The weather where I come from is worse".

例えばこの話者は新潟の出身とし、冬の東京での会話とします。
東京の冬は、雨や雪はほとんど降らず晴天で乾燥しています。
一方、新潟の冬の天気は毎日曇りか雪で、晴れの日は大変少ないです。

ご婦人は、「私の 郷里｛きょうり｝/住んで居たところ では天候/天気はもっと悪いですわ。」
学生は、「おれの 田舎/おったところ はもっと天気は悪いよ/ぞ。」
紳士は、「私の 郷里/住んで居たところ では天候/天気はもっと悪いです。」

故郷｛ふるさと｝はご婦人や紳士は使う可能性はあります。 しかし、出生地、出身地、故郷{こきょう}は、意味的には全く問題ありませんが、ご婦人、学生、紳士ともに上記の例文ではあまり使わないように思います。

「地元」だけは用法が異なります。「地元」は、出身地を指す場合も、今住んでいるところを指す場合もありますので、上記の例文のように出身地を指す場合は、故郷の名前と一緒に、例えば「地元新潟では」のように使います。

その場合は、ご婦人、紳士ともに「私の地元新潟では天候/天気はもっと悪いです」のように使います。

何故か、学生は「天候」をあまり使わず、「天気」を使うように思います。 私だけの感じかも知れませんが、専門用語としての違いではなく、「天候」は「天気」に対して少し気取ったあるいは上品な感じがしますので学生同士の会話では使わないのかも知れません。

ご婦人や、紳士も、「普段の会話」では「天候」はあまり使わず「天気」を多く使うように思います。

Answer 3

「私が育ったところでは天気がもっと悪いよ。」

"The place where I come from has much worse weather."

the place where I come from

[私が] 育ったところ