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What's the difference between ね and な as tag questions? For example: そうですね vs
そうだな

Is there any difference in level of politeness? Does one sound more masculine
than the other?

Edit: The examples above are pretty vague (or even just plain wrong in terms
of actually being tag questions). The more concrete example from Amanda S
better illustrates my question: パーティは明日だな? (The party is tomorrow, right?) vs
あの子はたけしですね? (That child is Takeshi, right?)
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tag-question particle-な
What's the difference between ね and な as tag questions?
な by itself does not indicate a tag question; it is used to add emotional
emphasis to a sentence. However, it can be combined with か. 〜かな can generally
be translated as "I wonder if ...".

There's also the other, unrelated form of 〜な which forms a casual command to
not do something. For example, 心配するな means "Don't worry".
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I don't know what you mean by tag question, but your example is a usage of
emotional emphasis as explained by sartak.

In that case, ですね is implicitly more polite than だな, but that's more due to
the copula used (ですvsだ). Usage of な is seen more often in masculine speech;
even when casually speaking, feminine speech tend to end with ね (i.e. そうだね). な
can also be used with です although it's mostly seen in older men. Some males
with 僕 personality (as opposed to 俺) tend to use ね instead, though I'm only
speaking from experience about this one.

EDIT: after being given the wikipedia link by @Amanda, I can safely say the
same rule applies for tag questions too. E.g. あなたはまだ契約していないのですね is more formal
than あなたはまだ契約してないんだな
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I think that there's some confusion in the types of そう in your sentences. In
the first one (そうですね) the meaning is "It is so" or "I agree with you". It's
used like this:

A: さむいですね。(It's cold, isn't it?)  
B: そうですね。 (It is, isn't it.)

In the second one, the そうだな (or そうだなぁ with a rising tone) can be used to mean
"That looks/appears to be..."

A: さむそうだな。 (It looks cold)  
B: そうですね。 (It does, doesn't it)

I might be wrong, but I think you can also answer this with "そうだな", which is
agreeing in the same way as そうだね.

As for the other questions, な does sound more masculine, and not polite.
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The particles ね and な have several different uses, but one is to turn a
statement into a tag question. For example:

  * あの子はたけしです (That child is Takeshi) / あの子はたけしですね? (That child is Takeshi, right?)
  * パーティは明日だ (The party is tomorrow) / パーティは明日だな? (The party is tomorrow, right?)

For this usage:

  * ね is more formal and more feminine
  * な is more informal and more masculine
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2011-06-02T00:31:24.300
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