5 ms·

I disagree. Yes, it's trivial to avoid saying Atashi and ending sentence in wa, but feminine language differences are a lot more pervasive than that. There's a

I disagree. Yes, it's trivial to avoid saying Atashi and ending sentence in wa, but feminine language differences are a lot more pervasive than that. There's a ton of subtle stuff, and you end up sounding strange if you aren't really careful. To just give one example, there are a ton of places you can choose to throw in an o- or not, just like in English, you can choose to say "the" or not. As in English, it's about pattern matching and getting used to the subtle frequencies for this stuff. Just like French people sound silly when they use "the" in the wrong places, a man sounds silly when using o- in the wrong places.

thaumasiotes 5y ago
> To just give one example, there are a ton of places you can choose to throw in an o- or not, just like in English, you can choose to say "the" or not. Definiteness marking is certainly an area where speakers of languages that don't do that get confused. But I'm not comfortable saying that there are a ton of places in English where you can choose to say "the" or not. In most cases, there's only one correct choice. Going back over the nouns in my previous paragraph: (marking area[0] speakers[1] languages[2] I ton[0] places English you cases choice[1] [there]) [0] rival article already marked [1] "the" permissible; presence and absence are both fine [2] "the" possible; presence may raise eyebrows
- rendaw 5y ago
  I think GP was talking about honorific/humble o not the object marker o, and chose a poor metaphor. Because honorific/humble o is often a signal for feminine language... there was a trending tiktok video about prefixing "toilet" with "o" for example.
  - earthboundkid 5y ago
    If I meant the direct object postposition, I would write “-wo” not “o-”. The problem with o- is that both men and women use it, but women use it slightly more, and getting that right is hard for a non-native.
- larsbrinkhoff 5y ago
  If the overusing of the articles makes me sound like the Starfire, so be it!
novok 5y ago
I think that exists in most languages, including English! I also don't think it's too much of a problem, since once you have exposure to a broader spectrum of people you start to pick up what is masculine / feminine speech and how different social classes talk.
dreamcompiler 5y ago
This is one of ways I can tell whether email was written by the native English speaker. Articles are missing or in wrong place. The plurals is other dead giveaway. Apparently articles and plurals are very difficult in English, but to me--a native English speaker--they are the most natural thing in the world. Of course I'm complete shit at the Latin-based languages because I can never get the masculine/feminine words right.

thaumasiotes 5y ago

> To just give one example, there are a ton of places you can choose to throw in an o- or not, just like in English, you can choose to say "the" or not. Definiteness marking is certainly an area where speakers of languages that don't do that get confused. But I'm not comfortable saying that there are a ton of places in English where you can choose to say "the" or not. In most cases, there's only one correct choice. Going back over the nouns in my previous paragraph: (marking area[0] speakers[1] languages[2] I ton[0] places English you cases choice[1] [there]) [0] rival article already marked [1] "the" permissible; presence and absence are both fine [2] "the" possible; presence may raise eyebrows

rendaw 5y ago
I think GP was talking about honorific/humble o not the object marker o, and chose a poor metaphor. Because honorific/humble o is often a signal for feminine language... there was a trending tiktok video about prefixing "toilet" with "o" for example.
- earthboundkid 5y ago
  If I meant the direct object postposition, I would write “-wo” not “o-”. The problem with o- is that both men and women use it, but women use it slightly more, and getting that right is hard for a non-native.
larsbrinkhoff 5y ago
If the overusing of the articles makes me sound like the Starfire, so be it!

novok 5y ago

I think that exists in most languages, including English! I also don't think it's too much of a problem, since once you have exposure to a broader spectrum of people you start to pick up what is masculine / feminine speech and how different social classes talk.

dreamcompiler 5y ago

This is one of ways I can tell whether email was written by the native English speaker. Articles are missing or in wrong place. The plurals is other dead giveaway. Apparently articles and plurals are very difficult in English, but to me--a native English speaker--they are the most natural thing in the world. Of course I'm complete shit at the Latin-based languages because I can never get the masculine/feminine words right.