Matte te ne! ^-^

The winter holidays are the perfect time to sit down in front of a large set of unsorted data and to ... well, sort it out! And so as I set to the very fun, very gargantuan task of alphabetizing all of the Japanese words I have looked up from my computer on whims over the course of the last two years, I come across memorable quotes, words, or expressions from stories -- most of them pornographic in nature -- which I have read over time.

One such story is the source of this thread's title. In it, a league of five superheroes loses one of its own to the clutches of a criminal underground trying to take over the world. The women who are taken captive are sold into slavery. Such is the fate of the one heroine who falls in battle to the enemy. Regrouping at their home base, the remaining four heroes -- three men and one woman -- discuss what their next course of action should be. Only the woman is in favor of an immediate rescue operation. The men stress that their female comrade is probably gone forever at this point, and that even if they could save her they need to formulate a plan. But the young woman, the youngest of the entire group, is tormented by the thought of what her senior must be going through, and so she sets out on a one-woman rescue mission of her own.

This young, charming girl sneaks into the underground posing as a slave herself. In fact her shackles are not locked, her gear hidden in a secret device no bigger than a wristwatch, and as soon as she is out of eyesight of the enemy guards and the other slaves, she dons her gear and sets out to rescue her friend.

As she walks by a room with an open door, she sees a fair number of shackled slaves. They are too many for her to save on her own and they would likely increase her chances of being caught were they to tag along with her. As such, ninja-like, she darts past the room as quick as she can and says under her breath, "I promise I'll come back for you! Wait for me!"

The thing is ... these aren't the exact words she uses. Move on to the next post to get the real meat-and-potatoes of our grammar discussion.

The attached picture is a cut-out of the exact speech bubble I'm referring to. To break it down first word by word, and then for meaning, and then for English complementary meaning:

Original sentence:
きっとみんなも助けてあげるから待っててね！

Word by word:
きっと = surely, certainly, without fail
みんな = everybody
も = even, too, as well
助けて = rescue
あげる = conjugated with the root verb when the speaker is doing the listener a favor
から = because, since
待って = wait
て = abbreviated form of いて, which is the imperative form of "to be" and is attached to the preceding root verb as a way of expressing the idea that an action should be undertaken not for an instance but for a window of time (e.g. 待ってて means "wait [and remain waiting: do not simply wait for 1 second]!")
ね！= okay?, right?, a particle which begs agreement/confirmation from the listener (e.g. the English "You saw him, didn't you?" would be written "You saw him, ne?")

Japanese translation:
Surely I will rescue everyone [of you] too, so wait for me, okay?

English equivalent translation:
I'll come back for you, too! I promise! Just hang in there!


The thing is, NONE of these translations -- the word by word, the Japanese, or the English-semantic -- conveys to you the cuteness and the femininity of her speech. I mean, it does ... but it's not intrinsic to the words themselves. It is a gestalt concept where the whole is more than the sum of its pieces -- the whole in this case being extraordinarily cutesy and feminine.

待っててね (まっててね) simply says "Wait [for me], okay?" But what it really says, what it complexly says, is " 'Wait [for me], okay?' she said in a cute, feminine manner."

Permutations of the verb "wait for me" (an imperative command with ongoing repercussions):
- unabbreviated form: 待っていて
- abbreviated form: 待ってて

Of these, the latter sounds a little more childlike/feminine, but both sentences are useable by both genders and all age groups.

Uses of ね:
- don't use it
- use it
- use something else

Using ね at the end of a sentence leans feminine but can also be gender-neutral. Using nothing leans masculine but can also be gender-neutral. Using something else like な (na, masculinized ね) or よ (in this context lending an imperative flavor, e.g. "Wait for me! [You'd better!]") would lean masculine.

END-PRODUCT ANALYSIS:
- unabbreviated and no ね = least feminine
- abbreviated w/o ね = feminine sort of
- unabbreviated w/ ね = feminine sort of
- abbreviated w/ ね = really feminine

It's sort of like 1 + 1 = 5 instead of 1 + 1 = 2.