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points by comrade1234 5 days ago | 0 comments
My cousin speaks fluent Japanese. He had another western acquaintance living in Japan that was a stay-at-home dad who spent his days with Japanese mothers. It seems that women speak differently enough from men where the guy was learning female speaking (accent? Structure? I have no idea) and so my cousin had to talk to him privately and tell him he speaks like a woman...
[–] traceroute66 4 days ago
> accent? Structure? I have no idea

Its a combination of many things, intonation and delivery, politeness (formality, honorifics etc.) level, word choice, particle choice.

Its known as onnarashii (女らしい) speech.

Its a historical thing which is gradually falling out of use. These days you tend to only mostly find it in situations where the politeness levels are needed/expected (e.g. hospitality industry).

[–] xelxebar 4 days ago
> Its a historical thing which is gradually falling out of use.

Are you sure?

Personal pronoun choice differs significantly between sexes. Women employ more onomatopoeia usage on average. かしら codes as feminine. Males have flatter pitch variation in general.

Those are just off the top of my head.

[–] netsharc 4 days ago
Why do they speak in a high-pitch voice? E.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9m635Jrep30
[–] thaumasiotes 4 days ago
> Its known as onnarashii (女らしい) speech.

> Its a historical thing which is gradually falling out of use.

No, not at all. Different sexes present themselves differently in every culture and therefore in every language. If you only learn from one sex, you won't be able to tell what parts of their language are sex-specific, and you'll learn to speak like they do.

I've gotten this criticism without speaking at all, by texting with people on Wechat. One girl remarked to me that saying 嗯嗯 [it's an agreement noise; very close in concept to "uh-huh"], with two syllables, came off as overtly feminine. As a man I guess I'm supposed to text 嗯.

I still use 嗯嗯, though, because it's as common as dirt in my experience and 嗯 is much rarer. Is that an artifact of my pool of conversational partners? Probably.

[–] viraptor 3 days ago
> and therefore in every language

What's different in English? Apart from purely situational stuff ("going shopping with girlfriends" for example), what's specific to the language itself?

[–] voxelghost 3 days ago
what? 嗯嗯 is Chinese - no wonder the Japanese get confused. [edit: just realized that you mentioned wechat - so you are probably talking to Chinese people?]

In Japanese its うんうん, Uhn-Uhn - it might read very slightly on the feminine side , but definetly not 女らしい - and not something that people would point out.

[–] thaumasiotes 2 days ago
Yes, I'm talking to Chinese people. My entire point is that there is no special "you learned to talk like a woman" phenomenon in Japan - that phenomenon is universal across every human culture. If you learn to talk by speaking to women, or by listening to women, then you will talk like a woman, and anyone native to the culture will notice.
[–] TFNA 4 days ago
It can happen with a lot of languages. I'm a man who learned Russian mainly through several months of traveling rural Russia where I learned quickly to avoid men: they were mostly hopeless drunks (or drug addicts) and could go from friendly to violent in an instant. So, when I needed to ask for information or directions, I turned to the women who were around. The result is that Russians find my speech distinctly female-coded.
[–] branon 4 days ago
When were you travelling rural Russia? I assume for pleasure and not business? How was it?
[–] AdmiralAsshat 4 days ago
It may be more pronounced in Japanese, but it's not like it's totally without precedent in English either.

Imagine a male, non-native English speaker learning from a group of stay-at-home moms. Deep South, Midwest, take your pick. He's gonna pick up some stuff. Men in the US aren't expected to say "Aw honey," or "Bless yer heart!"

[–] Jtarii 4 days ago
>Men in the US aren't expected to say "Aw honey," or "Bless yer heart!"

It would entirely depend on how you said it. Like sure, if you said it a flamboyantly feminine way that would be strange to some people, but you could easily say those things in a masculine way.

I don't think there is any situation where a ESL speaker is going to be told that they are speaking like the wrong gender.

[–] socalgal2 4 days ago
A man saying, "I'm going to powder my nose", is saying it as a joke. If a male ESL speaker said it not as a joke I think they'd like to know it's not a common phrase for men so they know to use it as a joke and not just a statement.

There are plenty of others, but yes, not as many as some other languages.

[–] goodmythical 4 days ago
>but you could easily say those things in a masculine way

That's the entire point. That you could say those things in a masculine way.

Anyone can train themselves to speak in ways that make them sound either closer to the gender the present as or the gender they'd like to present as.

Consider the tone, cadence, and word choice of a "hard cowboy" compared to a "dweeb streamer". They sound different, no?

Consider the vocal fry of the valley girl or the bouyancy of the "gay voice".

Hearing the following spoken over the phone, can you really not see that one might sound more like a women, and one more like a man?

"Hiya! Oh.Em.Gee! Okay! So! You're never ever going to guess what IIIiiiIII Saw! Today!" in a dynamic high pitch?

VS

"yo. wazzup. bro, I saw some shit today"

>I don't think there is any situation where a ESL speaker is going to be told that they are speaking like the wrong gender.

You might need to get out more. Or thank your fate that you're blessed to have never experienced it yourself, but even then I'd be surprised you've never had a friend experience it.

LGBT people grow up being told they're talking wrong all of the time. Women who prefer declaritve sentences are told they are being to manly all of the time.

[–] dvh 4 days ago
Could be worse. He could have ended each sentence with dattebayo.
[–] triyambakam 4 days ago
A male Youtuber learning Swedish had this problem too
[–] voxelghost 3 days ago
Really? As a Swede, I find that difficult to imagine. Not saying it isnt true, but I just cant think of an example where male and female speach significantly differs in Swedish.
[–] rootsudo 4 days ago
yes, you're precieved weak/femenine and possible for lack of better word, gay/lgbt

the same goes for many langauges, but you need to learn the same japanese but different form and way its spoken. I had this issue too, luckily a few japanese women helped me OL/dates so I could steer but this is a big issue