I’ll assume here that the speaker is neither culturally Japanese nor in Japan. Even under that assumption, being able to speak Japanese probably doesn’t imply geekdom too strongly—strictly speaking it’s evidence for it, but most anime fans never learn the language past a few catchphrases, and it’s not that uncommon a language in the West as non-Western European languages go.
However, using a Japanese phrase in a casual context implies quite a different set of things. You might be using it as tribal attire, which probably means you’re an anime fan. You might expect it to carry meaning, which outside of a Japanese-run business, a language classroom, or a dojo probably implies that you’re hanging out with anime fans. Or you might just be used to using it, which usually implies plenty of experience with one of the above.
I don’t, in fact, speak Japanese as a functional language, or pretend to any deep cultural knowledge of Japan. So sort of your second option; I’d be emitting that noise expecting to trigger the same concept that would be triggered by the common translation “do your best” in an English speaker (with the extra warm glow of anime-fan group affiliation). And I probably wouldn’t do so to an actual native speaker, because of paranoia that I’m not properly modeling their experience, which may not make sense.
“Do your best!”
(I’ll only actually say “Ganbatte, ne!” if the other person is geeky enough to appreciate it.)
Why does being able to speak in Japanese imply geekdom?
I’ll assume here that the speaker is neither culturally Japanese nor in Japan. Even under that assumption, being able to speak Japanese probably doesn’t imply geekdom too strongly—strictly speaking it’s evidence for it, but most anime fans never learn the language past a few catchphrases, and it’s not that uncommon a language in the West as non-Western European languages go.
However, using a Japanese phrase in a casual context implies quite a different set of things. You might be using it as tribal attire, which probably means you’re an anime fan. You might expect it to carry meaning, which outside of a Japanese-run business, a language classroom, or a dojo probably implies that you’re hanging out with anime fans. Or you might just be used to using it, which usually implies plenty of experience with one of the above.
I don’t, in fact, speak Japanese as a functional language, or pretend to any deep cultural knowledge of Japan. So sort of your second option; I’d be emitting that noise expecting to trigger the same concept that would be triggered by the common translation “do your best” in an English speaker (with the extra warm glow of anime-fan group affiliation).
And I probably wouldn’t do so to an actual native speaker, because of paranoia that I’m not properly modeling their experience, which may not make sense.