In linguistics, a filler is a sound or word that is spoken in conversation by one participant to signal to others that he/she has paused to think but has not yet finished speaking. These are not to be confused with placeholder names, whatsamacallit, whosawhatsa and whats'isface, which refer to objects or people whose names are temporarily forgotten, irrelevant, or unknown. Different languages have different characteristic filler sounds; in English, the most common filler sounds are uh and um. Among youths, the fillers "like", "y'know", "I mean", "so", "actually", "basically", and "right" are among the more prevalent.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filler_(linguistics)
I thought this might be a useful and interesting topic for language learners.
What are some of the sentence fillers in your native language?
Does your native language have any?
It is interesting to note that fillers often contain the easiest vowel to say in the person's native language. That is why eehh and este are fillers in Spanish and um and huh are fillers in English.
In the United States, when I worked at a big company, there was a club that met during lunch hour that was called Toastmasters. It is almost like a fraternal organization, dedicated to help people improve their public speaking and presentation skills. (In theory it is international, but it is most popular in the U.S.) I found it to be very helpful.
In Toastmasters, you are led through a set of tasks, exercises, and challenges all of which involve giving a short talk to the group, typically five minutes. At every talk, three members play three specific roles: "Timer," "Grammarian," and "<em>Ah</em>-counter." The timer watches the time and holds up green, yellow, and red cards. If your speech is more than minute too long or too short, you fail. The grammarian makes note of any errors you make in grammar or word usage.
And the <em>Ah</em>-counter, as the same suggests, counts all of your <em>ah's</em>, <em>um's</em>, and <em>er's</em>. Because you're supposed to try to eliminate them.
There are many in every language. If I'm not mistaken there are new ones every year… Just listen to teenagers and you'll realize they're always innovating on this. I only know these two:
English: umm…
Spanish: eeeh…
Yes I think so, too. Without these expressions, native speakers may be frustrated for waiting our English. I wanted to be clear, but at least had to give a signal that I am doing my best..
Conversation fillers are very important. They are helpful because they give you time to think and produce your phrase properly.
In japanese we have ana, anou, eeto...
