I was told a story where a male westerner learnt Japanese from his girlfriend and ended up speaking more like a female. The storyteller thought this was hilarious.
What important differences should I look for between male and female speech?
Answer
There are almost too many to list, but the simple (grammatical) ones are:
- Men should never use わ at the end of a sentence in place of よ. If you're REALLY good at Japanese as a man, you can get away with わ only when you're saying something to yourself aloud, such as 疲れたわ in passing, right before you decide to leave work, et al.
- Women can end sentences with the nominalizer の (何しているの？). Men can informally (e.g. with their partners, family), but really should avoid it for the most part.
- Young men sometimes transform ない into ねー (it's a sound change, nothing grammatical - basically anything ending in "ai", such as "nai", "tai" can become "nee" or "tee"). I've never heard a woman do this.
Word selection is also important, but most dictionaries indicate this.
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