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 A homonym (from Greek: ‘same name’) is one of a group of words that share the same spelling or pronunciation (or both) but have different meanings. If you watch TV in Japan, you will notice that almost all of it has subtitles in Japanese. This is because without the kanji it is difficult to quickly interpret what people are saying due to the number of homonyms in the language. Here is a notable example:
貴社 の 記者 は 汽車 で 帰社 した。
"kisha’ no kisha’ wa kisha’ de kisha’ shita"
‘The news reporter from your company returned by steam train’
People speaking Japanese occasionally have to explain which kanji they are saying, although intonation and context are often sufficient to convey ones intended meaning. The prevalence of homonyms can present difficulty for Japanese in reading kanji aloud, but not so in reading for meaning.
Within the 2000 odd everyday kanji, the most common homonyms are kou (60), sho’u (49), shi (45), and kan (44). These homonyms do present some issues for clarification; remember however, they normally occur within ‘on’ words whose meaning will be apparent from the other syllables and /or context. Also some will be instances of a rare kanji reading which may only apply for a couple of words, which we tend to avoid showing here. For example,. 生(127) has 12 official and up to 100 unofficial readings (mostly in place names and the dictionary listings vary). The number of ‘official’ homonyms within the 1945 everyday kanji is shown in a box labeled "=" in the lower right of each page of the book.
Although homonyms are one of the quirks of Japanese for native speakers, you as a student will need to travel a fair distance before this presents itself as an issue worth sweating over. As in English, there is always more than one way of saying the same thing.
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