To call = to read in japanese??

[Shiroisan]

So, wow. I'm finally starting to understanding EXACTLY WHY japanese is supposed to contain the most homonyms in the languages of today...

following the "mu nu bu" rule of conjugation

yobu= yonde
yomu=yonde




Ok, so why did I bring that up you ask? Well, I was studying for jlpt using old tests, and one sentence said "Please call me a taxi."

I thought, no problem:

タクシーをかけてください。
I checked my answer, and instead it used よんでください。
So, my real question is, in what context can I use ”かける”for phone calls and in what context does it HAVE to be よぶ?　 Because I'd much rather avoid homonyms when I can, so am I able to avoid it?

[NileCat]

Maybe the following sentence would tell you the concepts of the two different words.
“でんわをかけて、タクシーをよんでください”

でんわ = telephone
でんわをかける = to make a telephone call
タクシーをよぶ = to call a taxi = to summon a taxi (by making a telephone call)

[micahcowan]

So, my real question is, in what context can I use ”かける”for phone calls and in what context does it HAVE to be よぶ?　 Because I'd much rather avoid homonyms when I can, so am I able to avoid it?

I'm not convinced that's a worthwhile pursuit. You're better off using whatever is a common, natural expression in Japanese. There's plenty of ways to say something "correctly", while still sounding very strange (this is as true in English as it is in Japanese).

I haven't personally seen かける used in that fashion outside of textbooks, so I don't have much of a sample set to compare against. However, when I have seen it in textbooks, it's always preceded by でんわを. I don't know that that's always the case, but I think it's primarily used when "making a phone call" is the interesting part of the sentence, and you want to specifically refer to using the phone to do something.

Think about it in English: do you say, "I'm going to make a phone call to get you a taxi", or do you say, "I'll call you a cab"?

[Shiroisan]

Cool, ty micah

Maybe the following sentence would tell you the concepts of the two different words.
“でんわをかけて、タクシーをよんでください”

でんわ = telephone
でんわをかける = to make a telephone call
タクシーをよぶ = to call a taxi = to summon a taxi (by making a telephone call)

This was extremely helpful Nileさん, my textbook thoroughly reviewed those kind of sentences so I can kind of tell how it's best used now

[AJBryant]

Think about it in English: do you say, "I'm going to make a phone call to get you a taxi", or do you say, "I'll call you a cab"?

Thing is, though it's not linguistically clear, "to call a cab" means to HAIL a cab, as in, grab one from the street. If you have to call the cab company, you are calling FOR a cab, and that's a different kind of call. In English, we have the same word for both, but in Japanese they have a different word for each function. YOBU is "to hail (a cab)", and KAKERU is "to call (the office to order a cab)."

[burstandbloom]

Thing is, though it's not linguistically clear, "to call a cab" means to HAIL a cab, as in, grab one from the street. If you have to call the cab company, you are calling FOR a cab, and that's a different kind of call. In English, we have the same word for both, but in Japanese they have a different word for each function. YOBU is "to hail (a cab)", and KAKERU is "to call (the office to order a cab)."

Thumbs up explanation.

Side note,
Not just limited to taxis though:
警察を呼ぶ (to call the police) or「警察に電話しする、警察に通報する」
救急車を呼ぶ (to call an ambulance) etc.