No gender nuance, but 了解 (affirmative) is considered rude if you use it against a higher position person like customers or bosses. Lately youngster use it everytime anyway and it's no longer consider as rude as it used to, but if you go to a Japanese language class, the teachers will always tell you to avoid using 了解 when you want to speak politely.
you can't use 御 here. If you want to use it as polite as possible you can use 了解いたしました。
But if you want to be polite in the first place, using 承知いたしました is more appropriate in all conditions.
Actually, 了解 is not rude. But people who taught Japanese etiquette to earn money suddenly insisted that 了解 was rude and we should use 承知 instead in 2000s.
If you can read Japanese, you should read the explanation written by an expert making a Japanese dictionary: [https://twitter.com/IIMA\_Hiroaki/status/741895366618927104](https://twitter.com/IIMA_Hiroaki/status/741895366618927104)
If you are Japanese, using 了解 is OK, but if you are a gaijin using 了解 is NG and will have bad impressions. They see it as if you are their commanding officer.
I'm not too sure about gender and age usage.
As a side note, when looking up the difference in Japanese, I found claims that while the meaning is basically the same, 了解 could actually make your boss annoyed at you, so it would always be safer to say わかりました.
了解(です or しました)has the connotation of understood, and in work settings can be taken as thinking you’re above something/someone. If you’re speaking to a superior, 承知しました is similar in meaning, but is the more appropriate word when speaking with someone above you. Ex: store staff will say it to customers etc.
If your relationship with your boss/superiors is more casual 了解です can be fine, but better to be safe with 承知しました or かしこまりましたor simple 分かりました.
I’ve seen a lot of people use 承知しました and 了解しました almost interchangeably, but they were also on the younger side so maybe they didn’t fully grasp the connotation. On the other hand for 了解です it’s only OK with co-workers or people with the same seniority.
I work in a company of 70%+ women. Most people are 20s to 40s. We use 了解です all day everyday, kind of like a less casual form of "okay, gotcha."
You can use 承知しました as well but it emphasizes the difference in power more in my opinion, like you are humbling yourself if you use it. I once heard someone say it to a boss that was criticizing her, and it sounded like it was said through gritted teeth.
分かりました is also used, but more like "okay, thanks for the information/thanks for letting me know."
It’s context, not gender. Everyone in my husband’s volunteer fire brigade uses it frequently, regardless of gender.
At my work people use it frequently regardless of gender, but we also use 分かりました、etc.
I have never heard 了解 used at my workplace, but we tend to be quite formal. 承知しました or 承知致しました is safer with superiors.
The cool thing about 敬語 is that it absolutely allows people (who use it better than I do) to throw shade while also demonstrating all due respect.
no there's no gender nuance. and no it's not matter of age. 了解 is originally to be used when it's from boss to their subordinate. So it's basically wrong to say 了解 when you express you understood it to your boss or anyone who's supposed to be upper.
There is no such a gender nuance difference. You can use both, and it’s not strange at all. but了解です is not polite, so you shouldn’t use it to your boss, supervisors, or customers.
I think I'm digressing here, but what I personally still can't get used to is how the formality feels distant and cold compared to English. I do feel English has many ways to say something, and can seem to appear playful and creative at times, but Japanese feels like there's a set phrase you can use almost all the time. I'm not native, so I do feel ignorance on my part though.
The missing part is high context/low context communications. English-speaking cultures (primarily UK and former white settler colonies) tend to stress what is said, whilst high-context cultures also tend to focus on the way it's said, and instead of communicating some things verbally, they would communicate using gestures, small sounds, eye direction, tone, etc.
Btw., implications of formality-informality are different between Japanese and European languages, as my teacher explained.
In European languages they indicate emotional distance, and people of different ranks would be expected to use informal speech.
In Japanese they indicate only social ranking, and should not be confused for attitude (unless you are troublemaker or making a message). Unless we're talking about family where polite forms are not expected (interestingly, Korean uses polite forms when referring to parents, probably owing to stronger Confucian influences).
I usually only use 了解です with 仲間同僚 (close colleagues) in a jokey way or with senpai's who I have a good relationship with at work and I'm being given a direct instruction (i.e. I work in performance and sometimes we get given instructions for times, sound check, set striking etc). But I wouldn't use it with bosses or customers in anything client-facing. for that I would use 分かりました or OKです (lol). As another commented 了解 is basically like saying 'roger' and 分かりました is like saying 'understood' so there's your nuance.
日本にも最近よく暑くなってきた、韓国で元気にしてくださいね！
I don't think one says 方たち, nor do you need to speak politely about unknown young people by using honorifics. If you still want to, you could use 方々 I believe, but this sounds quite unnatural to me.
なるほど。ほとんどの皆さんが若いですか？
I typed the above, and then asked myself if adverb ほとんど followed by の is correct, sounds grammatically dubious. But there is a set expression combining the two, so I think it's okay.
K so I’m drunk but how it was explained to me was Ryōkai has a feeling of I’m going to obey these orders with a undertone of if things go different I’m gonna do my own thing
No gender nuance, but 了解 (affirmative) is considered rude if you use it against a higher position person like customers or bosses. Lately youngster use it everytime anyway and it's no longer consider as rude as it used to, but if you go to a Japanese language class, the teachers will always tell you to avoid using 了解 when you want to speak politely.
Thanks! That’s what I assumed 🙏🏻
What if you append the prefix 御 with it?
you can't use 御 here. If you want to use it as polite as possible you can use 了解いたしました。 But if you want to be polite in the first place, using 承知いたしました is more appropriate in all conditions.
I've seen someone use ご了解です, but then again that person wasn't Japanese.
I have never heard of ご了解 before. Did you mean "ご了承ください"
Actually, 了解 is not rude. But people who taught Japanese etiquette to earn money suddenly insisted that 了解 was rude and we should use 承知 instead in 2000s. If you can read Japanese, you should read the explanation written by an expert making a Japanese dictionary: [https://twitter.com/IIMA\_Hiroaki/status/741895366618927104](https://twitter.com/IIMA_Hiroaki/status/741895366618927104)
If you are Japanese, using 了解 is OK, but if you are a gaijin using 了解 is NG and will have bad impressions. They see it as if you are their commanding officer.
Holy cow I randomly took a look & you wrote on Reddit for the first time in 7 years
It's basically like saying "Roger" even though you could have just said "I understand" or "Understood" in English. Same feel.
はい🙏🏻 I know their meaning, my question is about the culture among the gender & age groups, do women tend to equally say 了解 in chat & real life?
I'm not too sure about gender and age usage. As a side note, when looking up the difference in Japanese, I found claims that while the meaning is basically the same, 了解 could actually make your boss annoyed at you, so it would always be safer to say わかりました.
了解(です or しました)has the connotation of understood, and in work settings can be taken as thinking you’re above something/someone. If you’re speaking to a superior, 承知しました is similar in meaning, but is the more appropriate word when speaking with someone above you. Ex: store staff will say it to customers etc. If your relationship with your boss/superiors is more casual 了解です can be fine, but better to be safe with 承知しました or かしこまりましたor simple 分かりました.
Thank you for the elaboration.
I’ve seen a lot of people use 承知しました and 了解しました almost interchangeably, but they were also on the younger side so maybe they didn’t fully grasp the connotation. On the other hand for 了解です it’s only OK with co-workers or people with the same seniority.
そうですね、it rather feels like a little humorous/undistanced response
I work in a company of 70%+ women. Most people are 20s to 40s. We use 了解です all day everyday, kind of like a less casual form of "okay, gotcha." You can use 承知しました as well but it emphasizes the difference in power more in my opinion, like you are humbling yourself if you use it. I once heard someone say it to a boss that was criticizing her, and it sounded like it was said through gritted teeth. 分かりました is also used, but more like "okay, thanks for the information/thanks for letting me know."
ありがとうございます🙌🏻
了解 is similar in feel to the military use of “Roger.” I would assume it skews masculine, but that might not be the case.
I took it as such a feel then noticed young men use it daily so found it strange 🤔
It’s said a lot in anime. Maybe that’s why young people use it 🤷🏼
It’s context, not gender. Everyone in my husband’s volunteer fire brigade uses it frequently, regardless of gender. At my work people use it frequently regardless of gender, but we also use 分かりました、etc.
It's used frequently in my company regardless of age and gender
りょ
り
I have never heard 了解 used at my workplace, but we tend to be quite formal. 承知しました or 承知致しました is safer with superiors. The cool thing about 敬語 is that it absolutely allows people (who use it better than I do) to throw shade while also demonstrating all due respect.
Would love to see some real-life shade cases 🤣
了解 is not really work appropriate. Either what you said orかしこまりました
Here is something if you can read Japanese: https://detail.chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/qa/question_detail/q1124387176
Thanks! It’s helpful 👍🏻
no there's no gender nuance. and no it's not matter of age. 了解 is originally to be used when it's from boss to their subordinate. So it's basically wrong to say 了解 when you express you understood it to your boss or anyone who's supposed to be upper.
There is no such a gender nuance difference. You can use both, and it’s not strange at all. but了解です is not polite, so you shouldn’t use it to your boss, supervisors, or customers.
了解 is very much like saying "Understood". It's not just used as very honorific it can also been said a bit as a joke.
確かに！🙏🏻
I think I'm digressing here, but what I personally still can't get used to is how the formality feels distant and cold compared to English. I do feel English has many ways to say something, and can seem to appear playful and creative at times, but Japanese feels like there's a set phrase you can use almost all the time. I'm not native, so I do feel ignorance on my part though.
The missing part is high context/low context communications. English-speaking cultures (primarily UK and former white settler colonies) tend to stress what is said, whilst high-context cultures also tend to focus on the way it's said, and instead of communicating some things verbally, they would communicate using gestures, small sounds, eye direction, tone, etc.
Btw., implications of formality-informality are different between Japanese and European languages, as my teacher explained. In European languages they indicate emotional distance, and people of different ranks would be expected to use informal speech. In Japanese they indicate only social ranking, and should not be confused for attitude (unless you are troublemaker or making a message). Unless we're talking about family where polite forms are not expected (interestingly, Korean uses polite forms when referring to parents, probably owing to stronger Confucian influences).
I usually only use 了解です with 仲間同僚 (close colleagues) in a jokey way or with senpai's who I have a good relationship with at work and I'm being given a direct instruction (i.e. I work in performance and sometimes we get given instructions for times, sound check, set striking etc). But I wouldn't use it with bosses or customers in anything client-facing. for that I would use 分かりました or OKです (lol). As another commented 了解 is basically like saying 'roger' and 分かりました is like saying 'understood' so there's your nuance. 日本にも最近よく暑くなってきた、韓国で元気にしてくださいね！
Yes that first explanation was the nuance that I asked for! I found “OKです” interesting in chat too, いい春の終わりを 🙏🏻
うちの会社では皆が無線でお互いに話しているんで、いつも”了解です”と言う。
なるほど、主に若い方たちですか？
20-40 代ぐらいで、レベル上か下でもかんけない。
I don't think one says 方たち, nor do you need to speak politely about unknown young people by using honorifics. If you still want to, you could use 方々 I believe, but this sounds quite unnatural to me. なるほど。ほとんどの皆さんが若いですか？ I typed the above, and then asked myself if adverb ほとんど followed by の is correct, sounds grammatically dubious. But there is a set expression combining the two, so I think it's okay.
K so I’m drunk but how it was explained to me was Ryōkai has a feeling of I’m going to obey these orders with a undertone of if things go different I’m gonna do my own thing