Konnichiwa! I am currently beginning to learn Japanese and when I mentioned "shitte imasu = I know " to my fiance and wrote a phonetic down for imasu (ee moss) he told me that his brother (who is currently residing in Japan) said that women have to pronounce every vowel even silenced 'u' at the end of words and men did not. I wasn't sure if this was a vocabulary or grammar thing so I placed it here in miscellaneous. Is it true? Should I be pronouncing all of my vowels? Domo arigato gozaimashita!

シーペさん、 As far as I know, the differences between male and feminine speech are actual separate words and/or pronunciations of things and aren't as nearly subtle as your implying. Like the word 私　which in gender indifferent speech is Watashi. In Female Speech it'd be read as Atashi. They all mean "I" but one just is feminine speech. The Masculine word for I is 僕　which is pronounced as Boku. There are many more different masculine, feminine, and gender indifferent forms of the English equivalent of "I" but I think my point has been made really xD. :lol: それではまたね、 出礼句

Dear Sheepeh-san, I am a native speaker and there is no set rule as you have mentioned, regarding women pronouncing the silent 'u' at the end of words. Of course, pronouncing the 'u' in words like '~desu' and '~masu' is more polite - and thus, could be associated more with female speech. However, you will often hear Japanese women speak with the silent 'u'. So, just, ~des-, ~mas-. If you are a beginner, you should pronounce every vowel to get the pronunciation correct. The silent 'u' corresponds to the English shortening, or cutting off of words, such as in, _'kinda' (kind of)_. Japanese women do generally speak politer and with respectful speech in comparison to the men. -Sayaka :P

Arigato gozaimashita for everyone's responses. I was unaware that the 'u' works like that. I appreciate the insight ^^

Sheepeh-san, Dou itashimashite! You're very welcome! :P