"To teach" and "Call"

I recently stumbled upon the vocabulary word "to teach", which is "jiào" in Pinyin. If "My name is..." and "I teach..." have the same pronunciation, how would I know the difference? Are they written differently in real written Chinese? Thanks

There are two jiào, each with a different Chinese character. Teach is jiào (教). Example: Tā jiào zhōngwén. 他教中文。 To call oneself is jiào (叫). Example: Nǐ jiào shénme míngzì? 你叫什么名字? You know the difference in the spoken language just like you would know with any homonym in English: context.

Thank you so much for your help! I understand now!

Not only context, 教 is also tone #1, while 叫 is tone #4.

Tā jiào zhōngwén. 他教中文。 Nǐ jiào shénme míngzì? 你叫什么名字? 教 and 叫 are both fourth tones, at least according to Google Translate and my memory.

大家好！ I just wanted to clarify one of the comments made above. 叫 is most definitely 4th tone but 教 can change from being 1st to 4th tone depending on how is it used. Used as a single character verb, it is 1st tone. If it is found to be fourth tone then it is most likely something to do with religion 宗教. This is not always the case as some disyllabic words that use this character in the fourth tone may also pertain to education and teaching (this is because of the close connection between education and religion in Chinese culture). My advice is that if you are in doubt, look the word up in the dictionary because 教 can change its tone. I hope this helps and keep up the good work! 加油！ - Lin Ping

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