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Particle
| A sentence final particle that indicates the speaker's request for confirmation or agreement from the hearer about some shared knowledge. | English tag question (such as isn't it?; is it?; don't you?; do you?); you know |
(ks). 坂本さんは煙草を吸わない・吸いませんね。
Mr. Sakamoto doesn't smoke, does he?/ Mr. Sakamoto, you don't smoke, do you?
(a). A:今日はいい天気ですね。 B:本当にそうですね。
A: Today is a fine day, isn't it? B: Isn't it!
(b). あなたは学生ですね。
You are a student, aren't you?
(c). パーティーにいらっしゃいますね。
You are going to the party, aren't you?
1. In this construction the sentence preceding ね can be any informal or formal sentence except nonpolite imperative. Thus,
2. ね can be used as a request for either confirmation or agreement from the addressee. When a sentence expresses the speaker's strong impression of something, ね indicates the speakers request for agreement from the hearer, as in Example (a). When a sentence expresses something emotively neutral, ね indicates the speaker's request for confirmation from the hearer, as in Key Sentence and Examples (b) and (c). Here, however, Key Sentence can also be a request for agreement, if the speaker is surprised that Mr. Sakamoto doesn't smoke. These two uses of ね have diflferent intonations: the ね of agreement uses falling intonation and the ね of confirmation uses rising intonation. The ね of agreement becomes ねえ if the speaker is excited about the content of his statement. In other words, Sentenceねえ is an exclamatory sentence, as in (2).
On the other hand, the ね of confirmation has no exclamatory overtones; it implies something like 'I am assuming X but can you confirm it?' Thus, in Key Sentence the speaker doesn't like people who smoke, and for some reason or other, he wants to confirm that Mr. Sakamoto is not one of those people.
3. ね is sometimes used in a non-sentence-final position to draw the hearer's attention to something or to confirm that the hearer has understood what has been said up to that point. ね is typically used in this manner in telephone conversations.
4. {て/から}ね is specifically used to give a reason or a cause for the speaker's state of mind or feelings in a very indirect and vague fashion. Examples follow:
ね here indicates the speaker's request for agreement from the hearer based on shared knowledge.
5. The ね of confirmation or agreement is used after another sentence-final particle よ of assertion. よね means 'I assert that ~ but don't you agree?/am I right?'. This ね is pronounced with rising intonation
6. The ね of confirmation or agreement is used after another sentence-final particle, the question marker か. かね means 'I am not sure if ~, am I right?'. The ね of かね is pronounced with falling intonation.