How will I know when to choose Е and when Э after the Russian letter Ж?

Question

женщина — Е (stressed);

железо — Е (unstressed);

же (частица) — Е;

же (индейский народ в Бразилии) — Е;

жэ (название русской буквы) — Э;

межэтнический — Э;

ЖЭК — Э;

чжурчжэни — Э.

Seems not too easy for me!

I wonder: how does a Russian person (I am Russian as well) choose when to use Е and when to use Э? Does it always come purely intuitively?

Answer 1

ЖЕ is the rule. ЖЭ are exceptions:

• ЖЭК, ЖЭЦ, etc. are initialisms (more of the same).
• межэтнический, межэтажный, Воронежэнерго, Южэлектромонтаж are compounds. In compounds parts are simply put next to each other disregarding any spelling rules. Thus we get Минюст and постинфарктный vs предынфарктный.
• чжурчжэни, Чжэцзян, жэнь – ЖЭ was probably chosen to emphasize their foreign nature. The Russian Wiktionary only has these two words containing ЧЖЭ and none having ЧЖЕ.
• жэ (the name of the letter Ж), also spelled же – probably used to unify the series бэ, вэ, гэ, дэ...

Answer 2

In most cases "E" is used, "Э" is used in proper names and scientific terms.