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Aurora
What are some conversation fillers and/or back-channeling words in the Italian language? Conversation fillers are words used when hesitating mid sentence and you say: "Like..." or "Er..." or "Um..." or "So..." or "Uh..." Back-channeling are words used to show that you're listening in a conversation, like saying: "Mhm" or "Yeah" or "uh-huh" or "Ah" or "I see" They're little words that just help a conversation flow between two people. Honestly it's not something you really notice doing, but something you pick up doing while hearing a conversation. So what I'd like to know is are there examples like these used in Italian? I feel like knowing them would keep me more immersed when practicing. Thank you for your time!
Mar 8, 2015 12:09 AM
Answers · 3
2
To say the truth, even at the risk of seeming too much self confident: I don't use any filler, I try to stay far from those words, and still I can have good conversations and sometimes good laughs. A filler that used to be very popular: /cioe`/ A filler which is now very popular: /come dire/ Another one: /se volete/ and his bigger brother: /se vogliamo/. Please stay away from /come dire/ and from /se volete/, /se vogliamo/. Reason: /come dire/ is used when somebody pretends to appear imaginative or to think deeply, actually the truth is that the old-fashioned and humble /cioe`/ would have been more appropriate,as it clearly states: wait a minute, I have to think. /se vogliamo/, /se volete/, etc. are even bigger lies: the speaker is asserting asomething, for instance a political opinion, and uses this filler, which actually does not weaken his opinion, but weakens the RESPONSABILITY he or she is assuming by the simple act of expressing the opinion; I would not trust anybody who regularly uses this filler. An interesting note: our politicians (not really all of them) make big use of both the fillers I pointed out.
March 8, 2015
1
back channeling (very useful on a phone conversation): -- si` ... (aknowledgement + please go on) -- Ah (it is an assertion of aknowledgement) - e allora ? (Still following you, but please get to the point) -- (mmm mmm) (I'm still hearing and stil interested) : actually I d'ont know how to spell it, it is a kind of double musical note, with no wovels and no consonants) - eh gia` (interested + I share your view of things, of the event you are telling) a kind
March 8, 2015
What happened to your nose?
March 8, 2015
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