Onna kotoba
onna kotoba, or joseigo is "women's Japanese", which uses words such as the submissive "atashi" for "me" and often ends sentences with the particle "ne". In contrast, "men's Japanese" uses more assertive personal pronouns like "boku" and "ore". Due to the fact that the vast majority of Japanese language teachers outside of Japan are women, most foreign men inadvertantly end up learning "women's Japanese", which sounds particularly awkward when paired with the normal assertiveness of western-style speaking, and is the cause of much embarassment.
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