Hey there r/LearnJapanese . I’ve just started learning Japanese last week and one thing I’m extremely curious about is if there are verbal nods of acknowledgment in the Japanese language.
What I mean by this is:
In English, if someone is talking to you or telling you a story, while they talk, you normally say “mmm” or “yes” or “ahh yes yes.” Little things like that.
Is there an equivalent in Japanese?
7 comments
Search for “aizuchi” in Google. There are probably many more used in Japanese than in English. 🙂
When in Japan, ええと makes up 30-40% of my vocabulary.
I think it’s like うん, うんうん, あ〜, おぉ〜 and へぇ〜.
うん for yes or got it during the conversation , ううん for no or I didn’t got it (also in the middle of conversation) is what I use in 60% of the time.
ねっ！to agree with anything that was said, あっ〜also to say that you finally got something, わあー to show surprise (lifting the tone in the end), えっと〜 when thinking about something, and so on. These are the basics for my daily conversation
lol. There are many other, but don’t worry, you’ll get them as you study more and get in touch with other Japanese speakers.
Not only do they exist but they are also completely intrusive compared to English where they by comparison simply are nonexistent.
The degree to which they dominate Japanese conversation versus the relative absence of them in English is stark.
Japanese people had to relearn how to speak on the phone before full duplex international calls, because the nonstop aizuchi kept garbling the connection.
Hey, not relevant to your question, but I started learning last week too. Cool to see someone else just starting out also 😌
i also hear: eh? and so? from active listeners