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“Home is where the heart is,” goes the cliché. The idea is that one’s home is an emotional place—the place where one belongs, while one’s house is merely a building one resides in.
English uses the verb to live more commonly than to reside, especially when referring to one’s home. Very often one lives in one’s home, while one resides in one’s house. Since to live also means to be alive, this can cause mistranslation. When someone says, “I live in Chicago,” it doesn’t mean one is alive in Chicago but that Chicago is one’s hometown. When you are filling out legal documents, there is usually a place where one is asked for one’s “principle residence.” They could ask for one’s home, but I guess that doesn’t sound official enough, nor does house, so they have to have residence. As in the example above, one’s hometown can mean where you live now or where you were raised. To find out whether this is the family home or the present residence, the question, "Where did you grow up?” will elicit the first and “Where doyou live?” the second. The rule is a little different with one’s country of origin. The word fatherland and motherland are a little archaic. The two are the same and a man can use motherland while a woman can use fatherland. I suppose there is a difference is connotation here (mother is softer) but it is slight. More often nowadays one hears native country—“What is your native country?” or, probably better, “Where were you born?” The word native is usually to be preferred to the word aboriginal, although at heart they mean the same. In the Americas, Native American is used now instead of the former Indian. This causes some confusion, since technically anyone born in the Americas is native, but aboriginal carries baggage. This makes the word politically incorrect. Finally, the word hearth. This is a homey little word, often used by sentimentalists, to refer to the family gathered around the fireplace. (People often have a wood or coal burning stove in the family or living room, used for physical warmth in the past and now used for emotional warmth.)
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