I saw a video on YouTube posted by a fluent Japanese speaker (native NZ) living in Japan who said that Japanese men and women speak differently from each other and that you should always have a tutor who’s the same sex as you to pick up the correct pronunciation.

Can anyone confirm this?

I don’t know a lot of Japanese, but…. YES YES YES.
Even the ways to say “I” are different.
Some words are only for men and some other only for women.
Some are for old people only.
It’s especially a problem of vocabulary. Somehow of pronunciation. I have never heard a man saying the u in “desu”, but many girls make it. ….
Btw, for the basics, a good tutor can teach you even the stuff for the other sex.
If you are advanced (but I don’t think so, otherwise you wouldn’t have done this question) the issue is pretty different.

Yeah, I agree witht he person above. If you dont have a same sex tutor, you always google it and see what you come up with, but guys and girls do speak differently in Japan……..

It’s true that there are different styles of speech for male and female, as in many other languages. As for only learning from a tutor of the same sex…. now that sounds a little odd. As long as you are aware of the differences, you can learn to speak in the way you like. Polite speech in Japanese doesn’t change a great deal between sexes though.

agreed, women I have noticed, due tend to speak differently and add small things…. like my friend from Japan tells me, its “girlie talk”.

Yes, there are more feminine and masculine ways of expression, and you may raise some Japanese eye-brows (if you can notice them ;) if you are ambivalent to it, but as Michael says, polite speech is mostly neutral, it’s when you get really formal or informal/friendly that these gender-tints come out. If you are learning from a trained tutor, (s)he should be able to make sure you are speaking gender-appropriately.
I do have to say though, I was wondering why one of my professional, male student always talked a pitch higher when he spoke in Japanese – he was even copying the tone of my voice!! Ofcourse, I spoke in my baritone voice after we had a good laugh!
Same goes with age and status, line of work, etc too. Every language has this, I’m sure. They are usually highlighted/mocked in comedy!

I several times wondered if I needed a male teacher/tutor. I still haven’t answered my question. I try to expose myself to both, but I know for a fact I’ve said many things only women say.

I wonder if Japanese teachers change the way they speak depending on the student. For instance, would a female use less of these female language traits if speaking to a male student?

Well, with the Japanese language and gender (to my knowledge of Japanese), it is mostly with slang and the word “I” where gender is used

I think everyone’s basically answered this question well. I once heard a story from a friend who met a non-Japanese guy on a flight, and apparently his Japanese was really good, but he spoke like a woman, because he had learned it mostly from his Japanese wife.

You really don’t need to go to the trouble of being tutored by somebody of the same sex, because the differences between men’s and women’s Japanese aren’t so vast…. in addition, most of them come up, as everyone mentioned, in more casual speech.

One of the best ways to get used to the differences, rather than studying them, is to watch lots of Japanese movies and TV (which you can definitely do via YouTube along with many other online services for free). You will begin to notice that – in general – girls speak very “girly”-ly, and men often speak in an almost seemingly contrived masculine fashion.

Interestingly, I’ve also heard that the way men in Tokyo speak is considered by people from other areas (both men and women) to be relatively girly.

You learn a language through imitation. Watch TV shows with actors/actresses whose Japanese you enjoy, and you will probably begin to pick it up!

Great. I’m basically doomed to speak in a girlish way.

Basically, if you use the polite form, There is no defferences between men and women except call your self as boku or watashi ( well actually for the adults, it is better to say watashi /watakushi for both sex) . I don’t think it doesn’t matter if you learn Japanese from same sex or not at least the tutor know the defferences and also as you may know, written or polite form and spoken Japanese are deffernt. For casual saying, I hope all the totur understand which can be used for both sexes, ( most of them are though ) actually. When it comes to very broken /spoken Japanese, you can add something that you can tell you are male or female on the sentence ,or some of the words are for the femal or mans.

Don’t worry, Alexandre. Your English is not girlish.

As for the tale of the non-Japanese man with the girly Japanese, I reckon that’s a rare case…. once you get to mid-level and advanced Japanese, it’s very easy to differentiate between very feminine and masculine words. So my advice to beginners is not to worry about it – I agree with Hiromi that any Japanese tutor will (should) know the difference and won’t be teaching men ladies Japanese!

I sooo hope you meant “Your Japanese is not girlish”….. ;)

I was hoping that, too! :)

（笑）Haha, yeah, that’s what I meant!

Alexandre,
I agree with Andres. Watching Japanese movies and TV is a very good way to notice the difference. While you are not sure the difference, use only polite form that helps you avoid most of wrong expressions.
If you want to use informal expressions, be careful about the endings. For example, avoid the endings “wa” “wayo” “wane”.
“Ne” is a little tricky. It depends on the combination.
A woman: “kono hana, kirei ne”　A man : “un sou dane. (kirei dane)”
A woman : “kore oishii wane” A man: " un. umai ne, kore!"
The usage of “yo” is almost the same as “ne”.
Good Luck!

By any chance…. was that video by a man named Koichi?