.

You are right that both of those are much less common among people under 40 or so. I would not go out of your way to use either of them. Females should generally avoid using some of the most "blunt" or "masculine" language (i.e. sentence-ending だ and だろう) unless they really know what they're doing, but it's not necessarily to use the explicitly feminine forms.

I hear わ a lot more often than I hear かしら in my daily life. The girl one, not the 松本人志 one. Although, it has been used mainly with girls who I would consider "valley girls," in a sense -- not the "I'm a cute and gentle girl, using わ to show how feminine I am," but more along the lines of the "So, like, I'm totally like, a girl わ. I just got my nails and hair did. Look at me, わ!" type

I agree with かしら though, i've mainly heard women over 30 say it...but I don't hang out with women over 30 very often :/

Practice your kawaii squeaking voice.

I don't see/hear it used daily (aside from dubs, etc), but I've heard わ a fair bit. Especially like "寒いわ" which means kind of like "I'm cute and cold, give me your jacket".

IceCream Wrote:For だろう、it's just でしょう、でしょう。。。

How about the ditzy sounding「っしょ？」?

I think working in lots of の sounds very girly. Recently, I spoke to someone named のり, which I assumed was a guy's name, on Skype. One of the first things "he" said was 「そうなの？」and I immediately became suspicious. It turns out のり is short for のりこ and she is most definitely a girl.

I don't think it's so easy to draw lines though. My girlfriend doesn't really use anything in terms of language that would give away her sex. Generally using ～ないで and choosing ね over な are subtle hints, but still acceptable for guys. She, and a number of other girls I've spoken to (including のり), seem to use だろう more than でしょう too.

Most of the explanations you'll read are nothing but a very general guide. I think you should try making friends with some girls your age and developing your own sense of what is natural. In addition to age and personality, region is a big factor, although I guess you'll be focusing on 標準語.

Javizy Wrote:How about the ditzy sounding「っしょ？」?

Here among college-aged people in Sapporo, I've found this to be very common between both guys and girls. I never really thought it sounded ditzy. More guys using it than girls, now that I think about it
maybe?

Grinkers Wrote:Especially like "寒いわ" which means kind of like "I'm cute and cold, give me your jacket".

I vow I will use this line someday.

Of course there's the gender-neutral わ with falling intonation, which has some association with Kansai-ben but is used a lot even by Tokyo-ites (men and women). 寒いわ。 is something that I say (with falling intonation).

As people are indicating, there's a lot of difference in region and individual speaker as far as what type of language they would use. I think for a foreigner you should just try to follow some of the basic guidelines.

I also use わ occasionally as part of my Kansai-lite dialect in casual speech.

Asriel Wrote:

Javizy Wrote:How about the ditzy sounding「っしょ？」?

Here among college-aged people in Sapporo, I've found this to be very common between both guys and girls. I never really thought it sounded ditzy. More guys using it than girls, now that I think about it
maybe?

Actually, I've only heard it used by one ditzy person I know, and possibly someone doing a "cutesy" girl impression on TV. That's where I got the ditzy impression from. According to my friend, it's popular among young people, but is also very うざい. I can agree with the latter part.

Wait a sec...I thought you quit Japanese?

なぎfrom ハヤテのごとく！always uses ぞ which I thought was masculine.

IceCream Wrote:yknow when i'm speaking casually, am i alright saying だよ / だね, or is it better to drop だ altogether and just use よ or ね on it's own?

だ is fine as long as it's followed by よ or ね. For some reason it's considered much more blunt/masculine just to have だ.

jcdietz03: Anime is not a good source for this kind of thing because there's a lot of unusual or stereotyped usage. ぞ is a masculine particle (and not one that even males use that often, at least not the ones I've ever spent time around), although there are some common phrases like やるぞ (when you're about to do something) that both males and females will use.

IceCream Wrote:yknow when i'm speaking casually, am i alright saying だよ / だね, or is it better to drop だ altogether and just use よ or ね on it's own?

I've heard "そうよ" and ”そうね” enough to say that those are fine.
However, apart from そう, I can only recall having heard it with the だ
きれいね...I don't know, I doesn't sound right to me

Basically this is how it works, in a very general sense:

Nominal + だ = masculine/blunt
Nominal + だよ or だね = fine for either gender
Nominal + よ or ね = feminine/"gentle"
Nominal with だ dropped and no other particles = fine for either gender

("nominal" including both nouns and na-adjectives)

yudantaiteki Wrote:Basically this is how it works, in a very general sense:

Nominal + だ = masculine/blunt
Nominal + だよ or だね = fine for either gender
Nominal + よ or ね = feminine/"gentle"
Nominal with だ dropped and no other particles = fine for either gender

("nominal" including both nouns and na-adjectives)

good to know. I get those confused a bit sometimes.

IceCream Wrote:thanks 油断大敵！！！　：Ｄ

Oh! Yuudandaiteki. Yeah, that doesn't make sense right off the bat. Are those the right characters for his Romaji name?

Much more sense than: 亜風林　茶亜留主

IceCream Wrote:thanks 油断大敵！！！　：Ｄ

interesting. When you said 油断大敵 my mind immediately translated it into "Don't let your guard down!" But your referring to a name

Nukemarine Wrote:

IceCream Wrote:thanks 油断大敵！！！　：Ｄ

Oh! Yuudandaiteki. Yeah, that doesn't make sense right off the bat. Are those the right characters for his Romaji name?

Yeah, that's it. I forget when I started using this name, but I needed something that wasn't my real name (for some reason) and I picked this out of thin air. I guess it's applicable to Japanese learning but the choice was pretty much totally random. (I suppose it really should be yuudantaiteki but oh well...)

yudantaiteki Wrote:

Nukemarine Wrote:

IceCream Wrote:thanks 油断大敵!!!　

Oh! Yuudandaiteki. Yeah, that doesn't make sense right off the bat. Are those the right characters for his Romaji name?

Yeah, that's it. I forget when I started using this name, but I needed something that wasn't my real name (for some reason) and I picked this out of thin air. I guess it's applicable to Japanese learning but the choice was pretty much totally random. (I suppose it really should be yuudantaiteki but oh well...)

Shhhhh guys, you'll start another romanization war.

It's ゆだんたいてき so why should it romanize to Yuuuudan Taiteki? One u should be enough.

Edit: But really, you should switch to うどん大敵。That would be a much better name. 変更したらいいわ。

Oops, you're right. I was right all along ;-)

Yep, you should pay more attention, not let yourself be caught off guard. I think the Japanese have an expression for this... Can't remember what it's called though

Roughly I think it's like this

かしら - 50+

noun よ・ね - 40+ However this is used by younger women when addressing kids as well.

わ　- 25+ - This is quite womanly. So you will get young mature girls who will use it, but on the whole 30+ women use it. Of course, if they aren't very womanly they probably won't.

Also, note that in different dialects around Japan men use this with a different nuance. This usage is spreading I believe.

の statement - 5+ ? This is what young girls will use. It sounds girly and cute. Pretty much all girls use this. But it seems as you age it is used less.

の question - Men and women use this. It is soft, but it isn't girly.

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So basically, I would use の often and わ sometimes depending on how womanly you are..