Does ガールフレンド have a meaning of a female friend (like [girl
friend](http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/girl_friend)), or a female romantic
partner?

Someone told me it had the former meaning, and I should use "彼女" for a
romantic partner. However, the Japanese edition of Wikipedia seems to imply
that
[ガールフレンド](http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%AC%E3%83%BC%E3%83%AB%E3%83%95%E3%83%AC%E3%83%B3%E3%83%89)
means romantic partner, as does the [Tanaka
corpus](http://jisho.org/sentences?jap=%E3%82%AC%E3%83%BC%E3%83%AB%E3%83%95%E3%83%AC%E3%83%B3%E3%83%89).
Neither the English nor Japanese edition of Wiktionary have an entry on
ガールフレンド.
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-05-05T09:03:04.217
15752
2014-05-08T17:02:28.397
91
question
word-choice meaning loanwords
What nuance does ガールフレンド have?
彼女 is the word you want to use. Use of ガールフレンド is very uncommon now and would
sound a bit like a misguided effort by an old person to sound hip, or
something. If you use it though, it will mean romantic partner. To refer to
female friends, people use 女友達.
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-05-06T00:35:32.910
15772
2014-05-06T00:35:32.910
499
15752
answer
Without doubt, the most common ways to directly express "lover" in spoken
Japanese are 彼女, 彼氏, 恋人, 付き合っている人, etc.

「ガールフレンド」 is a misleading word even for native Japanese, and it stands
somewhere between "100% lover" and "100% pure female friend without romantic
feelings". And I agree that "ガールフレンド" is seldom used in modern spoken
Japanese, maybe because it's long and also ambiguous.

However I don't think this word is dead nor old-fashioned; you may have seen
by googling that there is actually a famous and popular smartphone game named
"ガールフレンド（仮）" published very recently. I think the current practical use of
ガールフレンド is express 恋人 euphemistically, or to emphasize the sense of chastity
or platonic relationship compared to directly saying 恋人.
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-05-08T17:02:28.397
15813
2014-05-08T17:02:28.397
5010
15752
answer