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I was trying to find house vocabulary and found multiple (from my perspective) synonyms (where the synonyms sounded like English). For example, ベッドルーム and 寝室, as well as キッチン and 台所, as well as バスルーム and 風呂場, etc.
What is the difference between the katakana and the kanji versions? Which ones should be used? Why do the English-sounding versions exist? (<-- for that question I assumed the kanji versions of the words came first)
Sometimes, loanwords sound simply cool and modern, and traditional words are too mundane or too direct. English speakers also have imported many new loanwords from foreign languages (café, siesta, kaizen, ...), but generally speaking, the influence that English has on other languages is much stronger than that in the opposite direction.
Semantically, キッチン, ベッドルーム and バスルーム are synonymous with their traditional (kanji) equivalents. However, these modern katakana versions tend to be preferred:
The more of the above conditions are met, the more the katakana versions are chosen. On the other hand, older speakers living in traditional Japanese-style houses still usually use 台所, 寝室 (or 寝間) and 風呂場 in daily conversations.
There is another Japanese-specific reason to prefer katakana over kanji for some words. See my previous answer.
