熱い vs 暑い — how do natives never mix these up in speech (they sound identical)?

Question

Since they're both read 'あつい', is there ever real ambiguity in spoken Japanese, or does context always make it 100% obvious which one is meant?

Accepted Answer

Context basically always resolves it in real conversation — 暑い is ambient/weather-only (暑い日、部屋が暑い), while 熱い is for objects, liquids, and figurative heat/passion (お茶が熱い、熱い人). You'd almost never construct a sentence where both readings are plausible at once, so native listeners aren't even parsing it as ambiguous the way it looks on paper.