Just mumble it and growl it so it’s incoherent, that usually renders anything ‘masculine’.
nandayo
Native speaker here. It will be なんなんだよ.
なんだの a little Tohoku masculine flair.
なんやねん なんや なんだよ 何なんだよ
は？
If you want a little more background on this one to answer similar questions in the future:
Generally speaking, masculine vs. feminine speech in Japanese comes from historical gender role expectations that men speak direct and informally (barring differences in social status), while women were expected to speak more politely at all times. And in Japanese grammar, indirectness is a way to make things more polite.
The “-no [desu]” (or “-na no [desu]”) grammar form is indirect. You are alluding to additional context or explanation that is unspoken in the main sentence. As such, it’s considered a sentence softener, which pulls (very) slightly in a “feminine” direction by default, in the absence of other overriding context.
Conversely, both “da” and the particle “ka” are direct and unambiguous, and so pull sentences in a “masculine” direction.
These two feelings tug on each other within a sentence, and result in an overall neutral feeling on net when speaking in desu/masu form. “desu ka” for example ends up not sounding particularly masculine or feminine on balance.
However when you go informal, now the tradeoffs start to get noticeably imbalanced. If you drop the “ka” entirely, there is nothing to balance the softening pull of “na no,” so “nan nano?” ends up sounding indirect and feminine. If you were to make it “nano ka,” that would pull it back closer to neutral or vaguely masculine on balance.
However, there is a tricky rule: you cannot say “da ka” together the same way you can say “desu ka.” For example, you cannot say “daijoubu da ka?” You have to drop one.
“daijoubu ka?” ends up sounding vaguely masculine, because the “ka” pulls in that direction by itself. “daijoubu?” alone would therefore sound vaguely feminine in contrast. “samui no ka?” would sound somewhat masculine, while “samui?” or “samui no?” would sound feminine.
So for your question, you can’t say “nan nan da ka?” as you might expect to sound masculine. “da” + “ka” isn’t allowed. And “nanka/nani ka” is already its own word with a separate meaning, so you can’t drop just the “da.”
So in this case, men drop the “ka” instead, and use just “da” as a question by itself: “nan da?” or “nan nanda?”
9 comments
え?!
何なんだ？
Just mumble it and growl it so it’s incoherent, that usually renders anything ‘masculine’.
nandayo
Native speaker here. It will be なんなんだよ.
なんだの a little Tohoku masculine flair.
なんやねん
なんや
なんだよ
何なんだよ
は？
If you want a little more background on this one to answer similar questions in the future:
Generally speaking, masculine vs. feminine speech in Japanese comes from historical gender role expectations that men speak direct and informally (barring differences in social status), while women were expected to speak more politely at all times. And in Japanese grammar, indirectness is a way to make things more polite.
The “-no [desu]” (or “-na no [desu]”) grammar form is indirect. You are alluding to additional context or explanation that is unspoken in the main sentence. As such, it’s considered a sentence softener, which pulls (very) slightly in a “feminine” direction by default, in the absence of other overriding context.
Conversely, both “da” and the particle “ka” are direct and unambiguous, and so pull sentences in a “masculine” direction.
These two feelings tug on each other within a sentence, and result in an overall neutral feeling on net when speaking in desu/masu form. “desu ka” for example ends up not sounding particularly masculine or feminine on balance.
However when you go informal, now the tradeoffs start to get noticeably imbalanced. If you drop the “ka” entirely, there is nothing to balance the softening pull of “na no,” so “nan nano?” ends up sounding indirect and feminine. If you were to make it “nano ka,” that would pull it back closer to neutral or vaguely masculine on balance.
However, there is a tricky rule: you cannot say “da ka” together the same way you can say “desu ka.” For example, you cannot say “daijoubu da ka?” You have to drop one.
“daijoubu ka?” ends up sounding vaguely masculine, because the “ka” pulls in that direction by itself. “daijoubu?” alone would therefore sound vaguely feminine in contrast. “samui no ka?” would sound somewhat masculine, while “samui?” or “samui no?” would sound feminine.
So for your question, you can’t say “nan nan da ka?” as you might expect to sound masculine. “da” + “ka” isn’t allowed. And “nanka/nani ka” is already its own word with a separate meaning, so you can’t drop just the “da.”
So in this case, men drop the “ka” instead, and use just “da” as a question by itself: “nan da?” or “nan nanda?”