Pronouns and gender

There is this animated movie from a couple of years ago called �gYour Name�h with the premise that a boy and a girl switch bodies. When the girl is in the boy�fs body and is talking to his classmates, she has a hard time getting the pronouns right, or maybe the verbs (at least that is what it looked like to me – I don�ft speak a word of Japanese and I was reading the subtitles). I was a bit puzzled by it, since in the languages I know pronouns and verbs don�ft change depending on the gender of the speaker (adjectives might, though). Does anyone who has seen this movie remember the scene I am talking about and could clarify why exactly she was confused by having to speak as if she were male?

I have not seen the movie but in casual conversation Japanese, women and men speak differently, mostly with pre-fixes and post-fixes (not with pronouns and adjectives). Certain prefix and post-fix make the sentence sound more feminine; and omission thereof or other prefix/postfix make it sound masculine.

Yes, in Japanese the first-person pronouns change in casual settings depending on the gender of the speaker.
For males, they usually use "ore" or "boku" in casual settings, and "watashi" or "watakushi" in more formal settings (the latter being the most formal).
For females, they tend to use "watashi" in any setting, although "watakushi" is not unheard of in very formal settings. There is also "atashi", which is supposed to be very feminine but I haven't heard it much. Some girls do use "boku", but it's not very common.

So in Your Name, Mitsuha probably was used to saying "watashi" and as soon as she realized she was supposed to speak "like a boy", she switched to "boku" (or "ore", I don't remember).

Also, in general, it is said that women tend to use language that is a bit more formal than men (obviously it depends on the person).

I hope this answers your question :)

In Japanese language, the more casual the conversation, the more clarity there is between male's speech and female's speech.

I think we've all seen a lot of fantasy/sci-fi stories in which a male and a female accidentally gets their bodies exchanged, and in Japan the confusion in speech is an added bonus in these cases. I've seen the movie, and it was just another great example of it. It is also one of the most difficult aspects to be interpreted to foreign languages such as English.

I know that Thai is another language that has many different expressions depending on the gender of the speaker.

The following link is just for reference:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_differences_in_spoken_Japanese

The scene you remember is when she (being in his body) comes to meet for the first time his friends and says �gwatashi�g which means „I�g but is used by men practically only in business settings and not with friends. But by women it is quite normal to use (although I personally use atashi which I find more �gkawaii�h. And I simply feel more comfortable with).
When his friends give her a very surprised look , i think she first changes to watakushi which is extremely formal and I only ever heard it from men in settings with clients. At which point his friends are totally surprised so she tentatively changes to �gboku�h which is kind of the standard pronoun that many men use for themselves (except if in a business setting speaking with a customer or your boss) and which as at women you can still use. Not very normal but possible. But it is still relatively formal (for men, but infrequent for women - never heard it actually). So his friends still give her a surprised look, because they are a gang of cool Tokyo young guys. So she tries �gore�h which still means �gI�h in English but I think no girl would ever use. Some (few) girls use boku but I think ore is really very �gbrutal�h. So girls wouldn�ft use it for themselves and much less this girl in the movie who is from a very traditional countryside family. Probably her male friends at home don�ft even use ore for themselves. (I don�ft remember now).

So it is actually quite a key scene that with a few words makes it clear how confused she/he is.

What I always found strange about this scene and a few others is that none of his/her friends start thinking that something strange happened. It�fs like your best friend doesn�ft remember who he and you is and you still continue quite normal. That�fs strange.

Regarding boku, I think most men in Japan use boku for themselves except in business meetings unless they use ore. I rarely hear men use watashi (outside of business meetings involving clients). Actually the only men I heard using watashi are foreigners and Japanese teachers.

Thanks to everyone who replied. That was very interesting information; I don't think I had ever heard of a language with multiple forms for the first person pronoun.