Eto ne...

When making a speech in English, professional speech coaches tell their clients, "don't say 'um'". And they are right. It fills audio space, but it's a horrible little syllable made up of two the most banal letters in the alphabet. "Um" is a little groan, produced by the vocal chords in stressful situations when the brain is still loading.

In Japanese, the common place-holder is "eto, ne" which takes up two more syllables than does "um" and includes the middle syllable "toe" which acts as a pivot around the melodious "eh" bookends. I vote we adopt it in place of "um".

In Tosa-ben, the regional dialect of Kochi Prefecture, they have another syllable which is also frequently used by everyone and seems to be rather favored by my students, particularly my 6th graders who are just on the edge of adult conversations rather than kid dialogues: "sa". "Sa" (pronounced "saaaaaaaaaaah" or "saaah", but hardly ever "sah") fills the air during school lunch and break times when students embark on meaningful conversations about schoolwork, the kid with food allergies, or annoying classmates.

There are a variety of other conversation fillers you can use if you're not hyaku percent sure what is being discussed. Their effective utilization is dependent on your vocal inflection, but even if you are only giri-giri and non-committal on tone, you can generally get away with not understanding everything and sounding like you are following part of the conversation. A few of the most useful of these are:

"Hounto ni" - really? Really? For real? Are you sure? Wow. I can't believe it. I see.

"Sou desu ne" - That's about the size of it. Hmm, you're right. I should have thought about that myself... I see.

"Sou desu ka?" - Really? I. Never. Knew. How about that? Is that right? Whoa. Shut the front door. I see.

"Naruhodo" - I see. I see. I see. I see. I see.

(When you read an English textbook from a Japanese school, you might often find "I see" in sample English dialogues. The teacher will then ask me if this is "natural English" and when I reply that I rarely use that phrase and it sounds translated, she assumes this is because I don't really understand English and don't have much call to use it at home. Sometimes it seems like Japanese people think English speakers get by with body language and grunting...)


So if you happen to find yourself walking through the rice paddies and an obaachan stops to fill you in on the weather, just throw out a few of those useful nuggets of colloquial chat. Even if you have no idea what she's talking about. It will impress her no end.

And if you can't remember those, just go back to "um".