pronunciation of Girlfriend & boyfriend.

In American English, if a female wants to refer to her female friends, she often says something like "I'm going out to dinner with a couple girlfriends." If a male wants to refer to his female romantic partner, he will say "I'm going to dinner with my girlfriend to night." There's no difference in pronunciation.

(When a female refers to her romantic, same-sex partner, she will often use the word "partner." I'm not very familiar with using "girlfriend" for female, same-sex romantic partners, but it probably does happen.)

In American English, males do not refer to their male friends as "boyfriends," nor do they refer to their female friends as "girlfriends" (or if they do, the usage is very rare). If someone refers to a female friend as someone else's girlfriend, that person may say "She's not my girlfriend! She's my friend who happens to be a girl" or "She just a friend."

In America, a girlfriend/boyfriend is generally assumed to be one's lover, no matter what the pronunciation is.  However, ladies will sometimes refer to their female friends as "girlfriends," and their male friends as "guyfriends".

Men have to be a more clear.  If a man says "girlfriend," it is always assumed to be their lover, and if a man calls another man "boyfriend," they will be assumed to be homosexual.

Again, I can only speak for America, I don't know about other places.

EDIT: Grammar Geek beat me to it!

Newbie2007 wrote:

Thanks for your reply. However, If I want to say : I went out for dinner with a friend who is female. I went out for dinner with a friend who is my lover. In which case girlfriend should be used  ? And can I say in other words ?

Generally, #2 would be the case in which "girlfriend" should be used.  Again, it all depends on whether you are a male or a female.

From a man's standpoint, if I were taking out a girl who was my lover, I would say, "I went out for dinner with my girlfriend."

If I were taking out a girl who was NOT my lover, I would simply say, "I went out for dinner with a friend."  I would leave it up to the person I was speaking with to ask if she was a female friend.  If I HAD to make a distinction, I suppose I could say "a female friend," but I usually just leave it out the "female" part because it tends to sound awkward.  I settle for "friend" because the gender of my dinner partner will probably come out later in the conversation when I say something like "she had a good time," or "she enjoyed the meal."

In contrast, if I went out with a male friend of mine, I would probably say, "I went out for dinner with a buddy of mine."  The word "buddy" is a slang term that is used fairly often among men.

How about "with a gal pal"?