Female / Male native japanese differences in speech

forspank · 24 Jun 2004

Hi to all of you,
I heard something about how japanese girls speak someway different from men, I'm learning japanese now with a native speaker teacher, she tends to say a lot the final "u" in the masu verbs and must of the " i " on the "shi" in words like hajimemashite, you know, :? is this related to that differences in speech between women and men or what differences do you know about, like using of certain words or different forms of verbs

...for anyone who know something on the subject I'll aprecciate your answers

Ja ne!

Glenn · 24 Jun 2004

Quick rundown off of the top of my head:

Women tend to drop the copula in plain speech more often than men to give a softening effect -- これは間違いわ。 or これでいいのよ。 They also tend to use the sentence final わ more often than men.

Women tend to use でしょ in place of だろう/だろ in plain speech.

Women tend to use the て form for commands more often than men (they also use ちょうだい) -- ドアを開けて（ちょうだい）。

That's all that I can think of right now; I'll let you know if I think of more.

forspank · 24 Jun 2004

sugoi desu ne!
arigato

That's helpfull, so as a man you are supposed to use "daro" right?
I just wonder if you say "desho" you would sound girlish?

Glenn · 24 Jun 2004

forspank said:
That's helpfull, so as a man you are supposed to use "daro" right?
I just wonder if you say "desho" you would sound girlish?

Well, as always, it depends on the situation. Actually, だろう is a bit rude. So you can use it if you don't mind being rude. In polite situations, whether you are male or female, you should use でしょう instead of either だろう or でしょ, because it is the most polite.

Elizabeth · 24 Jun 2004

Sometimes of course women have to use darou as well, such as in "darou to omoimasu" .... which leads to one rule of thumb that is it's more acceptable for women to sound slightly masculine than men to sound feminine. The most obvious example of which I suppose is men rarely using "watashi" for "I" (more often watakushi), but that's already getting slightly off the original subject....

Glenn · 24 Jun 2004

Elizabeth said:
Sometimes of course women have to use darou as well, such as in "darou to omoimasu" ....

Well, yeah, politeness suffixes and tense and whatnot are always shown with the main (i.e. last) verb, so anything before that will usually be in plain mode (except in some ultra-polite circumstances). I guess I should have been clearer; I meant when it is used with the main verb of the sentence.

jonny-mt · 24 Jun 2004

I don't want to repeat anything that's already been said here, but I do want to say that it's not something you should particularly worry about. Even though there are some speaking patterns that differ between male and female speech, it's not to the extent that you'll have trouble understanding one but not the other.

Just focus on your own speech pattern--I'm guessing you're male because you don't know the female patterns--and you'll be just fine. Besides, for every example of female speech you're given, there will be a counterexample where a man has used the same speech pattern. Outside of, say, a woman using 'ore' or a guy ending every sentence with 'wa', there are very few instances where incorrect usage would be considered overly innapropriate.

jaxfu · 27 Jun 2004

In writing a paper for school or something is the language then gender non-specific?

Glenn · 28 Jun 2004

Yes. It would be formal Japanese, unless it is a primary or middle school paper, which wouldn't be as formal. But it would still be gender non-specific.

Elizabeth · 28 Jun 2004

Newspaper articles are generally in the informal, masculine style.....I suppose because they are being written for a general readership.

jonny-mt · 28 Jun 2004

Well, it's not quite regular informal. The only big difference is that instead of using だ you use である...other than that it's good old plain form.

Elizabeth · 28 Jun 2004

jonny-mt said:
Well, it's not quite regular informal. The only big difference is that instead of using だ you use である...other than that it's good old plain form.

For newspaper articles ? The ones I generally see are simply "da" for the final verb... most likely to save space, though, more than any stylistic considerations since other aspects are consistent with formal, written grammar.

Female / Male native japanese differences in speech

forspank

後輩

Glenn

一切皆苦

forspank

後輩

Glenn

一切皆苦

Elizabeth

先輩

Glenn

一切皆苦

jonny-mt

無限馬鹿

jaxfu

後輩

Glenn

一切皆苦

Elizabeth

先輩

jonny-mt

無限馬鹿

Elizabeth

先輩

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