I know that だよ is like the informal of です but I couldn't get it because when I was having a conversation with someone which went like this
person: うん痩せたいです今よりもっと
me: 私も... ;;
person: だよなー
I couldn't get it ._.
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If you've learned enough of the language to use Kanji and such, you should know that だよなー is not a single unit, but 3 separate components. The だ in that is the 'casual,' so to speak, iteration of です, and is the one you're more likely to see in less formal situations and by more casually-minded folks. The latter 2 parts are what's known as 終助詞(しゅうじょし), the end-of-sentence particles that give a sentence a different flavor and intent, the kind depending on which one is used, much like the exclamation point, question mark and 'man' do in ending an English sentence. In this particular case, this is a combination of よ(emphatic 終助詞, works like '!' or 'Yo') and な(variation of ね, tag 終助詞 that also functions as a softer version of よ)
With all that established, your little chat likely went something like this:
Friend: Yeah, I wanna drop some pounds. Today, especially.
You: Me too...
Friend: Totally, man
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2If you're going to use words from Japanese grammar, I think you should use them the way they're used in Japanese. I would say
よandなare 終助詞 ("sentence-final particles"). In contrast, a 語尾 is an inflected word-ending. For example, you can divideはやいinto the 語幹 ("word root")はやand the 語尾い. – snailboat♦ Jun 28 '13 at 11:09 -
だよなーsounds more feminine to me, so I don't know that equating it to "man" is a good idea since the emphatic "man" like that is mostly used by...well, men. – istrasci Jun 28 '13 at 14:53 -
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1Apologies if the terminology is in error. My materials-Tae Kim's grammar book, specifically, taught me that 語尾 were those sentence final particles. That's likely why I never found much on them when I looked up 語尾 – Roy Fuentes Jun 29 '13 at 3:42
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だよなー is manly tone of 'だよねー'.
だよねー is だよね.
だよね is shortly word of そうだよね。
same following.
person: うん痩せたいです今よりもっと
me: 私も... ;;
person: やっぱり、そうだよねー。
Example.
friend: 痩せたいよ今よりもっと。
me : 私も... ;;
friend: だよねー。 / だよなー。 / そうだよねー。 / そうだよなー。
junior: 痩せたいです今よりもっと。
me : 私も... ;;
junior: ですよねー。/ そうですよねー。
ですよなー。 / そうですよなー。 are wrong.
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Roy Fuentes' answer is pretty good, but needs some correction. な is not adding softness. It's adding emphasis. I felt this wasn't clear in his answer. Also, ね is not a softer version of よ.
Addressing some of the comments — thinking about whether だよなー is more masculine or feminine is a bit overthinking in my opinion. Either gender can say it in a casual setting (I think young people use this more than older people).
よ sort of adds emphasis, or simply is used when telling someone something, like you're figuratively handing them information. It can be used casually or formally.
な here is just emphasis. It doesn't seem formal to me. Casual, familiar. A little bit "young" like the "man" in "yeah, man!"
