I haven’t felt so peaceful in a long while… it’s amazing how much good weather and some solitude can do for a person.

I've been studying non stop this past few days because exam season is coming for me and I'm not ready (like at all).

A secret to more fluid speaking in Japanese

Adding よ or ね at the end of your sentences can help soften and add a more natural sound to your spoken sentences! よ is like adding “I tell you” and ね is like “right?” (Keep in mind, these are usually at the end of informal sentences, but you can add them after です as well!)

Here are some examples:

これかわいいね！- This is cute, isn’t it!

日本語は難しいよ - Japanese is hard I tell you!

この食べ物は美味しいですね - This food is delicious, right?!

この花はきれいですよ！- This flower is beautiful I tell you!

Already that makes sentences sound less stiff and even adds personality~

Also, avoid ending sentences with just だ as it sounds like an anime villain and not natural

DON’T DO THIS. PLEASE. I BEG YOU.

look into some other sentence ending particles or words to add ‘personality’ to your sentences. and don’t do this at all until you’re comfortable with the idea of telegraphing extra emotional information with your speech and have decided which particles suit you best. use when needed and when in doubt, leave them out.

よ can be super-fucking condescending if you’re not careful, and way too emphatic otherwise. do not use this liberally. んだ・んです are safer.

ね only has a gender-neutral use in formal contexts (workplaces, radio broadcasts, among strangers, etc) to seek confirmation of statements… otherwise it’s primarily used by women (this isn’t a bad thing per se. it just may not have the effect you intend). な and だろう are options you can use in familiar/informal speech too.

the only consistently good piece of advice here is not terminating your sentences with a simple だ. not because 'it sounds like an anime villain’ but because it’s too declarative. だ usually needs to be softened some with another particle.

Be aware that my posts are for beginner students so I’m not typing out every way よ and ね can be used.

Also, whether something sounds feminine is dependent on what region you’re speaking in. Men from Kansai say the Japanese men from Kanto speak is feminine. The men from Kanto say men from Kansai speak too harshly. You can say don’t use よ or ね until you learn to convey emotion, but I can assure you 99.9% of the time if you’re a beginner then everyone can tell you’re not using よ to be condescending. This post was a simple post to correct the common だ ending I see used a lot because that’s too direct and harsh. Japanese is about softening things.

You stated だろう as an alternative but that can also be condescending. Tone isn’t explicitly in the ending particle but in the tone and intonation of your voice, just like any language.

My post was checked by a native Japanese speaker who studied Japanese and English linguistics. I get you’re trying to inform, but make your own post next time.

snow falling at konno hachimangu shrine in shibuya, tokyo.

雪の日の神社が本当に素敵だった。

co ss18