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男の人 never say です or ます?

-悪魔-

先輩
13 Jun 2004
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1
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Let me introduce myself real quick since this is my first post, sorry if my grammer is bad I still have a lot to learn.

ぼくは二年生に大学です。せんもんはEEEでも日本語とアニメと日本人の女の人が
好きです。日本語を勉強します。二十一さいです。

I took japanese classes for 4 years in high school but I didn't learn as much as I should have because I had a bad teacher and it was a few years ago and I forgot a lot of sentence structure rules and vocab. I'm just starting to take japanese classes again at college.

Anyway, on to my question.

I've noticed in anime men rarely use desu and masu to end their sentences unless talking to someone higher up. Mostly ending their sentences in だ, な, or plain form verbs, and that's even if they complete their sentences.

For example instead of saying 名前は[name]です they'll just say おれは名前は[name] without a です or だ

Is this the way guys are suppose to talk to your peers? I notice that majority of women actually use desu and masu all the time, probably cause women try their best to be as polite as possible? I know that's important for japanese women.

Just looking for some insight, thanks.
 
In reality the way foreigners are taught japanese is a long way off how its actually spoken. Desu/Masu are used for when speaking to people higher up, which is a great thing to know, but not so great when they start speaking back. Its one of my pet peeves with uni atm.

In normal casual conversation for men, desu -> da, masu -> plain form. I don't even use da unless its for emphasis, sometimes leaving it off or straight adding 'neee' 'yo'. It makes you look cool and macho :D
 
Konnichiwa -悪魔-san!

Welcome and Hajimemashite. Yoroshiku ne!

Is this the way guys are suppose to talk to your peers? I notice that majority of women actually use desu and masu all the time, probably cause women try their best to be as polite as possible? I know that's important for japanese women.

At first, Japanese has some way of speaking, normal language, slang, dialect, honorific language, polite words, baby talk, old person's terms and etc...
Usually, you (and most of all foreigner) are taught Hyoujun-go/normal speaking. But this Hyoujun-go is very inconvenience, because no one use Hyoujun-go on daily life in Japan. All Japanese use a dialect and slang words on daily life.
The end of words DA, NE, YO, YA and etc are dialect or slang. Those words are used in Anime/Manga frequently. Because the words of Anime/Manga is near to actually spoken words in Japan.
Japanese use a dialect and slang words, but they must use Teinei-go/Sonkei-go to superiors, or formal place. In this time, Japanese man use Desu/Masu. But they can not speak Teinei-go/Sonkei-go perfectly, they use Desu yo/Masu yo or Desu ne/Masu ne frequently. This is a Teinei-slang/Sonkei-dialect? :D

NANGI
 
I need to watch more anime I know :p. Although I have heard da or "da yo" used by a lot of women as well....how about "da wa" ? (or da naa for men) Is it still considered very feminine or girlish ?
 
> Is it still considered very feminine or girlish ?

Yes, but guys use "da wa" in frank, colloquial conversation to show "throw my hands up" mood.

・そんなんじゃ駄目だわ。
・俺じゃあやっぱり無理だわ。
・アイツには本当にお手上げだわ。
・そんなことばかり言ってるからいつまで経っても成功しないんだわ。
・今月は支払いが多くて苦しいんだわ。
....etc
 
Wow, that's very interesting, kara. I had just thought that it was used only by men in Kansai, but I guess it's used universally in the type of situation that you mentioned. Thanks for the info. 🙂
 
I didn't realize that either until a Tokyo friend said he rarely uses it.

「だわ」はめったに使わないね。
 
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