Quote:広島の男性は「～わ」って言います。
「～よ」と同じ感覚ですかね。
例えば「行って来るわ」とか「今日は早く帰って来るわ」とか。
うちの夫はとりあえず「～わ」がつきますよ！あと広島なんで「～けぇ」も連発です。
ただ女性的な上がる発音ではなく、下がる感じですけどね。

西日本の男性は割と語尾にわを付ける方が多いような気がします。

How different is speech in Hiroshima compared to Tokyo? This strikes me as the kind of usage I hear.

Here's a case for Tokyo. Maybe not a very good one, though.

Quote:父が「～だわ」という話し方です。
チャキチャキの江戸っ子で、言葉遣いは悪いし、女性的な話し方ではないです。
「俺わかんないわ」
「飯食ってから行くわ」
「今日は時間ねぇんだわ」
少し丁寧で
「困ってるんですわ」
「です」にもつけてますねー(笑)

言われてみればそういう話し方する人他にあまりいません。
父方の親戚に男性がいなくて、他の人がどうかわかりません。
よく考えてみると自分もそういう言い方(女性言葉でない「だわ」イントネーションも違う気がします)してるときあります。
とりあえずうちはずっと東京です。
何代か前にどこかから移り住んだというのも聞いたことがありません。
他の方の意見が気になります！

yukamina Wrote:How different is speech in Hiroshima compared to Tokyo? This strikes me as the kind of usage I hear.

Here's a case for Tokyo. Maybe not a very good one, though.

Well, Hiroshima is quite far from Tokyo and the writer himself says he feels that わ is used by guys in western Japan.

As for the Tokyo example... I mean yeah, it is definitely a guy from Tokyo saying he uses わ without it being feminine... but he seems kind of unsure about the usage himself and he makes no indication that other people his age uses it. (Just his father who is an 江戸っ子 which is slightly special).

What I would guess from this is that male usage of わ is a western phenomenon which is slowly working its way towards the east, I think it's extremely uncommon. I mean, look at the iKnow sentences... is there a single example a male voice actor uses わ?

Well, I never questioned the quality of the sentences from Iknow, but you made me wonder.

You can see men saying 〜わ in many doramas. Just pay more attention.
I don't know why you disqualify 江戸っ子. It is the extreme example of 東京. It shows that 〜わ is there already for a long time.

mentat_kgs Wrote:Well, I never questioned the quality of the sentences from Iknow, but you made me wonder.

You can see men saying 〜わ in many doramas. Just pay more attention.
I don't know why you disqualify 江戸っ子. It is the extreme example of 東京. It shows that 〜わ is there already for a long time.

I'm not disqualifying 江戸っ子, I'm just talking about modern average Japanese people and standard Japanese. While 江戸っ子 is certainly a part of Tokyo, standard japanese is the dialect spoken by the average person in Tokyo, not by 江戸っ子 who use very special slang words etc.

Hmm, I pay enough attention I'd say... I haven't heard it in My Boss My Hero or any of the many episodes of London Hearts I've watched (and rewatched). Not in Tiger vs Dragon either, but I watched that with subs so it's possible I missed it if it was used. Pretty sure no male character in Bleach or Naruto uses it either... Except possibly Ochimaru or Gin, but we've already covered that...

広辞苑 does cites two uses of わ - the older, used to express strong emotions and exclamations, and the newer, tagged as 女性語, used to express light assertion.

Maybe we're mixing both?

Quote:わ
助詞
(終助詞)
1. 呼びかけを表す。万葉集13「小子わくごどもいざ―出で見む」
2. (係助詞ハの転。習慣で「は」と書かれることが多い) 活用語の終止形を受ける。
a. 詠嘆・感動を表す。狂、入間川「おいとまを下された―」。古今集遠鏡「これ
は、アレ鴈がかへるワ、アレ松虫の声がするワなど訳すべし」。「よく言う―」
「出る―出る―」
b. (女性語) 軽い主張・決意・詠嘆を表す。「もう帰ります―」「あらすてきだ―」

Yes and no. We knew of both usages.

I have a new sentence question for you ~

What are you studying?
あなた　は　なん　の　べんきょう　を　して　いる　の　です　か。

I'm not really understanding the reason for the second の in this one.
I would have expected more of a べんきょう　を　して　います　か ending.

Adding のですか (often shortened to んですか or just の)　to a question invites explanation and further clarification from the person you are asking.

So あなたは何の勉強をしていますか　is simply "what are you studying?"

but あなたは何の勉強をしているのですか is a bit like "what are you studying? (please tell me all about it, I'd like to know)". It's hard to translate the nuance into english...

Watch anything in Kansai dialect and you'll be getting a whole lot of わ. Maybe Lovely Complex?--it's girly but that's the only show I can think of that's actually done in Kansai-ben throughout.

I live in Kyoto and わ is used about equally by males and females here. In fact, the person I know who uses it the most is a 50 year old man that speaks with one of those ridiculous deep voices.

SammyB Wrote:Adding のですか (often shortened to んですか or just の)　to a question invites explanation and further clarification from the person you are asking.

So あなたは何の勉強をしていますか　is simply "what are you studying?"

but あなたは何の勉強をしているのですか is a bit like "what are you studying? (please tell me all about it, I'd like to know)". It's hard to translate the nuance into english...

This is a pretty interesting grammar pattern I think. I learned it as SammyB described it, and the book I was using described it as an 'extended predicate.'

However, later I read an explanation from a Professor of Japanese Literature at Harvard, Jay Rubin, who has a pretty interesting take on the の thing. の probably came about as a short form of もの and it's just sort of a filler noun. When we use の at the end of a sentence like that, really, the の is being modified by the entire rest of the sentence, just as any other noun could be.

Take the sentence:
昨日、東京で買った本だ。
(It's the book that I bought in Tokyo yesterday.)

Here, 昨日、東京で買った is all being used to describe the book. So, the book is being modified by the whole rest of the sentence. The same thing is happening to the の at the end of a sentence.

So, in the above example あなたは何の勉強をしている is all just describing the の. However, の can only really be translated as "it," "the thing," "one," "the one," or things along those line. So, here 'it' is all being modified by "what it is that you're studying." So in English it would be "What is it that you're studying?" ('that you're studying' is modifying the 'it')

In English too, "What is it that you are studying" sounds more pressing, specific, and interested than "What are you studying?" So that's the feeling that の conveys here.

Both of those explanations make a lot of sense. I had learned the ん　です　か pattern before, but did not realize it was related to の　です　か.

I learned ん　です in the context of 'want'... that it was seen as a bit childish to come out and and say you wanted something directly. So, by adding the ん you get ほしい　ん　です, which would be more like 'that is the thing that I want'. Which fits well with the idea of the ん or の evolving from もの.