Do japanese people use 男の子？

[tokukarin]

男の子 and 男の娘 are pronounced the same, so do people use 男の子 in normal conversations or do they rather use 少年 or 男子 to avoid confusion?

[podbod]

In my experience, people usually use 男の子 to mean boy in everyday conversations. I’ve never heard of 男の娘 but I am guessing that because that word is pretty specific in its definition, context will be pretty clear when it is being used.

The pattern I’ve noticed is that 男子 is often used when it is part of a noun phrase. Like in high school, students are referred to as 男子生徒 and 女子生徒.

[tokukarin]

Yeah I usually hear 男の子 too, and in written form it’s fine but when spoken I would be confused I someone could get offended.

You know nowadays this whole gender thing is a sensitive topic…

But thanks for the explanation with the additional information about high school students <3

[Leebo]

No one would avoid the common, everyday word just because obscure slang also exists.

Dictionary aggregator weblio doesn’t even have 男の娘 except for the wikipedia article discussing how it’s internet slang.

It’s something that basically only exists as a written play on words not used by the vast majority of Japanese people.

[freeman]

男の子 and 女の子 are used commonly when specifically talking about a child’s gender.

For example,
you tell a stranger: “I have one child”.
Stranger might ask: 「男の子ですか？」

Similarly, you would use these words to describe how many kids you have. As in “I have two kids - one boy and one girl”.

少年 on the other hand is most commonly used when saying something is FOR boys, like boys manga, etc. You would never say you have one 少年。