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The gender thing is mainly for pronouns. Little girls say "atashi" for "I", little boys, and sometimes men, say "boku." Everyone can say "watashi" or in very formal settings "watakushi." "He" and "she" are very different as well...
I'm trying to learn something now that ought to be really simple. When you say the date, it's like in English, you say "it's the fifth" meaning the fifth day of the month. But Japanese has a set of numbers taken straight from Chinese, and then they have the old native Japanese words for the numbers which are completely different. So for months -- there are no names for the months, March would be San-getsu (or is it sangatsu?) meaning "three month" using the Chinese word for three. But the third day would be mi-ka or mui-ka, I don't have these down yet. You see the old word for "two" in various contexts, for example 2 people is "futari." And the second of the month is futsuka.
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