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I probably sound like a woman most of the time I speak Japanese. Except when I don't. But everything from how to say "I" (men say 俺 ore or 僕 boku, and only women really say 私 watashi, except of course when men decide to say watashi in certain circumstances for subtle reasons, or when a woman decides for funzies with her galpals to call herself ore) to question tags (yaro vs. dessho at least here in Kansai) to word choice can be marked masculine or feminine. This is not even getting into issues of power where the sempai will use words to the kohai that the kohai should not use back to the senpai. As a foreigner I am exempt from a lot of this, but this also means I am constantly perceived as linguistically limited (which I am) and therefore not fully part of the program.
When in doubt, listen to the view of the Japanese person, who will be getting all the subtleties. That said, I am of the belief that one person can't give the one right answer any more than any random American can tell you how to interpret a given social situation at the shopping mall in Columbus, Indiana.
Agreed.
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I seem to recall reading, probably either here or on Hacker News, that native Japanese speakers can identify those who mostly learned the language from their (opposite gender) significant other because they don't do well following the gender conventions. I don't know much Japanese --- I tried Duolingo on it for a few months --- but I appreciate the examples you've listed, even if I don't understand much of it at all.
There are many non-Japanese around me who are far more fluent than I, and I have tagged (in my motte dossier) more than one user with the phrase "Japanese is better than yours," but even I can pick up on this, in particular when hearing non Japanese women speak Japanese like males. It can be off-putting even for me, and it takes a bit of thinking to realize why.
Note: I also hear this in Japanese women who have learned English from hanging around a bunch of American/British/or Canadian dudes. One in particular, she notably swears a lot (in English) and often when it seems uncalled for (even when for me sometimes a swear word would be natural--I realize some here, some males even, eschew harsher forms of speech as a personal rule.)
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Heh, I participated in a previous discussion where "only women really say watashi" came up here (I still can't speak or read Japanese) https://www.themotte.org/post/149/friday-fun-thread-for-october-28/23892?context=8#context
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