Sentence Enders

こんにちは！お元気ですか。Wahhhh! Okay, so I’m moving right along with my TextFugu studies. I can honestly say from the past 3 or so years, this is the most that I’ve been motivated and the furthest I’ve ever been with actually learning, season 3 has been no joke. This bit we’re covering sentence ender よ, sentence ender ね, feminine sentence enders, and masculine sentence enders. Just when I thought things may be sort of easy… jokes on me.

よ

よ is a neutral sentence ender, so it can be used by anyone. よ is used to make assertions. There is a bit of leeway on what an assertion can be and what an assertion isn’t…

ね

ね is another neutral sentence ender, but unlike よ, ね is used as an agreement and also can be translated into a few different words. It can also be used as a reflection. Based on the inflection, ね, can also be used as a sentence ender for a question.

ね can also be used to on it’s own to get someone’s attention. For now, I think I’ll just stick with すみません！ This way I don’t unintentionally offend anyone.

Combining よ& ね

よ & ね can be combined to よね, not the other way around, it combines the two feelings and asserts whatever question/statement that it’s been added to.

Gendered Sentence Enders

Gendered language in Japanese isn’t as strict as some languages. Some words are just more masculine or feminine than others. It’s not wrong to use one word over the other, but it will sound less authentic.

Feminine Sentence Enders

の

Unlike the particle の, the sentence ender の adds emphasis or can act as a question based on your inflection.

のよ

の adds emphasis to the よ making it an assertion.
みんな　がくせい　なのよ Everyone is a student.
You may have noticed the な in there as well. This is added in here to make sure people don’t think you’re saying “it’s everyone’s student’s ….” You don’t want people to think you’re talking about something the student is in possession of.

のね

の adds emphasis to the statement and ね adds agreement

わ

softens the end of the sentence, makes it more “feminine”

わよ

softens the assertive nature of よ

わね

softens the agreeing nature of ね

かしら

adds a sense of wonder to a phrase…. “i wonder..”

Masculine Sentence Enders

ぞ

ぞ is like よ in that it indicates assertion, though it’s a bit more casual. It’s used with casual form. ぞ is fairly positive sounding.

ぜ

more forceful and less polite version of ぞ

かい

かい has the same usage as か, just considered more masculine. It does sound gentler than か

かなぁ

かな is the masculine version of the feminine かしら

Side note, I just scrolled down after writing down my next 5 four-stroke kanji, and holy shit I’m almost done with season three.