one of the context sentences for お兄さん (level 7) is as follows:
私のお兄さんは体が大きくて、仕草も男の子らしいです
now, doesn’t the 男の子 mean “boy” as in “male child”? if so, this would lead me to believe the sentence says something like “my older brother is big, but behaves like a boy” which would make sense as it creates a contrast between the older brother’s large physical size against his childlike demeanor.
but instead, the translation for the context sentence says:
My older brother is big and he also has a masculine demeanor.
but when i learned 男の子 in level 5 it didn’t mention anything about it also meaning “masculine” so what gives?
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So the masculine comes from らしい. This is something with two different grammar points attached to it. One is used as a way to say “Sounds like/ I heard that …” but another is to point out the quality of someone “typical of~” so for example 猫らしい means “typical of a cat” aka “cat-like” and so therefore this sentence with 男の子らしい means “typical for a boy” which means “masculine”.
That is interesting thanks!.
Does this have any crossover with っぽい？
I have only just come across this recently while talking with a friend and it was explained to me it had the “ish/like” kind of vibe to it.
っぽい is definitely closer to -ish so it’s much more casual than らしい. You can use らしい as a compliment, but っぽい would not be a compliment.
So honestly, I really only ever hear 男らしい and not really adding the の子 or の人 after 男 in real life for “masculine”, but I think it would be the same meaning if you used 男の人. I mean, they’re both boys/men so therefore masculine. I think if you want to use the word masculine 男らしい works
