Why Japanese Female Singers Often Use “Boku” as First Person Pronoun?

[00:00:00]Why do some female singers use Boku in songs? In Japan, in general, Boku is a first person pronoun used by males.

[00:00:09]Women usually use pronouns like ori.

[00:00:14]And yet, in songs, you often hear female singers use.

[00:00:20]What's interesting is that using Boku in songs doesn't necessarily mean they use Boku in private life. They might use watashi in everyday life but use boku when writing a song. So why do they choose boku when writing songs? That's because has the vibe of a more honest, innocent version of yourself. Japanese people learn to use a variety of first person pronouns. Choosing pronouns is a part of socialization.

[00:00:53]A little boy might call himself Boku, but as he gets older, he may start using Ole instead. Among male friends, Boku can sound too innocent or naive. And boys may not want to be looked down on.

[00:01:10]They want to sound more masculine, rough, and confident. So many of them start using or to signal that they're tough guys. But when they grow older and entert society, sounding modest and professional or humble becomes more important. So depending on their occupation, personality and social situation, they may use or in other words, we all learn to put on some kind of persona in order to survive in society. In Japan, women are traditionally expected to be modest and harmonious. Watashi is a humble and neutral pronoun, so it fits this expected image. A tomboy who used to call herself uchi in school may learn to use wati when she enters the workplace.

[00:02:08]Watashi has almost no personality. It is a humble colorist pronoun that blends into society. In a way, it is a mask people wear, a symbol of socialization.

[00:02:21]That's why some female singers avoid wati in songs. Watashi represents the socially adjusted self while represent the self before socialization.

[00:02:34]The role authentic self. As I mentioned earlier, boys often learn to use because sounds too naive. But that naivity is exactly what these female singers are looking for. Oku represents the self before socialization before learning how society works.

[00:02:57]Before learning putting on different types of persona. So they choose this pronoun because they think it fits the self they want to represent in a song.

[00:03:08]the voice of true inner self, a self that has not yet been distorted by society. For the same reason, people often use kimi when referring to you in songs. It's not an which has a nuance of trying to be respectful and it's not which can make it sound like you're speaking from above. Kimi is just a pure you, the person as you see them without any social filter. Let's compare these two sentences.

[00:03:49]Boss literally means I love you, but they have different nuances.

[00:03:56]Sounds a confident or arrogant man expressing his love. It has a rough wild energy. It's like as if you're saying, "I love you. I want to dominate you." If the alpha male of a chimpanzees expressed his love to one of the females in Japanese, he would say this.

[00:04:20]Some people prefer this way of expressing love because they are attracted to more wild masculine type.

[00:04:28]By contrast, gives the impression of the speaker is speaking from the heart without any filter.

[00:04:38]Oku is the naive true self. Kimi is you as you are. We are not talking about who we are in society. We are talking about a more pure, more essential self. I just love you the way you are. I don't care who you are in this society. I just love you. But one issue with saying is that it sounds a bit may sound like you're trying to look cool or poetic just to attract some girls. That said, those nuances are the nuances in modern Japanese. These are not dictionary definitions or ethmological explanation.

[00:05:26]I said oku has this nuance of naivity expressing pure self does not mean it is ethmologically true.

[00:05:51]What was [music] [music] foreign [music] speech.

[00:06:58]>> [music] >> Oh my goch.