"desu ne" is a meaningless, yet full of meaning, phrase.
Following an adjective, such as "ii" or "kirei", it is seeking the agreement of the listener...but depending on the tone of voice, it can either be asking for agreement or presuming agreement:
きれいです。 It's pretty.
きれいですね。 It's pretty, right? (said presuming the agreement of the listener)
きれいですね？It's pretty, isn't it? (seeking the agreement of the listener)
Following "sou", as in そうですね, it can mean almost ANYTHING, from a non-commital grunt of acknowledgement to an exclamation of agreement to a utterance of surprise or wonder to a complete disagreement. Think of "ne" as the Canadian "eh" or the more crude American "huh". そうですね then translates as "That's so, huh?" or "That's so, eh?" More properly, we would likely say, "Is that so?" Now think of someone saying the following:
"Why, my navel lint is particularly fluffy today!" Albert declared
"That's so, huh?" responded Jed without interest.
"There's nothing more magical than a rainbow," sighed Laureline.
"That's so, huh?" agreed Annette.
"Says here in the paper that they found a field of flowers at the south pole," noted Francine.
"That's so, huh?" asked Josh in surprise.
"I," exclaimed Bradley, age 4, "like broccoli better than chocolate. Really!"
"That's so, huh?" replied his father in an amused tone.
But そうですね is even more versatile, being used in places where we might say nothing at all to encourage the speaker to go on, or maybe we might say "uh-huh" Possible translations: "uh-huh", "hmmm", "you don't say!", "go on", etc.
Women especially will also use ですね sometimes to soften declarative statements, where a man might just use です.
Hope this was helpful!
Sean
