"Um" in various languages? (Philological Room) Language Learning Forum

"Um" in various languages?
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alfajuj
Diglot
Senior Member
Taiwan
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Speaks: English*, Mandarin
Studies: Taiwanese, French

Message 17 of 47

12 August 2008 at 2:36am | IP Logged

In Mandarin it's "ehhh..." (pronounced kind of like the letter A)
In Taiwanese it's "ane-ohhh..." or just "ohhh..."
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kmart
Senior Member
Australia
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Speaks: English*
Studies: Italian

Message 18 of 47

12 August 2008 at 7:22am | IP Logged

irrationale wrote:

In English, as I'm sure most people here know, the sound "umm..." is used as a speach spaceholder when you are thinking of what to say.

But in the English dialect known as "Valspeak" the equivalent to "umm" is "like".
As in "she was like going to come to the mall but her dad was like so mad at her for crashing his car he like totally grounded her".
This can become very confusing to foreigners, as this space-holding word sounds exactly the same as the English words for "similar to" and for "take pleasure in".
And to add to the confusion, it can also be used to replace the word "said" as in "he was like 'what's up with you?' and I'm like 'whatever', and he's like 'do you want to go or not?' and I'm like 'as if'..."
seriously...
;-)
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irrationale
Tetraglot
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China
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2 sounds
Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Tagalog
Studies: Ancient Greek, Japanese

Message 19 of 47

13 August 2008 at 1:25am | IP Logged

Linglot wrote:

Not 'ahhh' in Spanish, but rather 'ehhh'.

And as it has been said, Argentinian Spanish is famous for saying 'este...' (often pronounced "ette" or "ehte"). To the point that a joke says: How does an Argentinian dog bark? 'Este... guau!' (guau=woof)

Some others say 'esto...' instead.

Good, I'll start using "ehhh", because unfortunately I have to pause to think quite a bit when conversing :)
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JimmyJameskun
Newbie
United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5949 days ago
35 posts - 46 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: Mandarin, Indonesian

Message 20 of 47

13 August 2008 at 5:26pm | IP Logged

kmart wrote:

irrationale wrote:

In English, as I'm sure most people here know, the sound "umm..." is used
as a speach spaceholder when you are thinking of what to say.

But in the English dialect known as "Valspeak" the equivalent to "umm" is "like".
As in "she was like going to come to the mall but her dad was like so mad at her for crashing his car
he like totally grounded her".
This can become very confusing to foreigners, as this space-holding word sounds exactly the same as
the English words for "similar to" and for "take pleasure in".
And to add to the confusion, it can also be used to replace the word "said" as in "he was like 'what's up
with you?' and I'm like 'whatever', and he's like 'do you want to go or not?' and I'm like 'as
if'..."
seriously...
;-)

Before "like" was "you know?" or "y'know?" And the, you know, car on the... you know, umm, freeway, went
really fast during that chase, you know?

For Italian: this is taken straight from an Italianpod.com lesson, their "umm" is usually "Beh" but they also said
"Beh, si insomma,...." which they translated to "Yeah, well you know..." (Interview with George) check out the
lesson.
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TDC
Triglot
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United States
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Speaks: English*, Mandarin, French
Studies: Esperanto, Ukrainian, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Persian

Message 21 of 47

14 August 2008 at 6:47am | IP Logged

In Russian, they say так a lot as a place holder.
My students even use it when speaking English sometimes.
The translation is usually given as "so" though.
But they use it like:
Soooo...as I was saying...
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Zebulon
Diglot
Newbie
Sweden
Joined 5968 days ago
34 posts - 37 votes
Speaks: Swedish*, English
Studies: French, Latin, Ancient Greek

Message 22 of 47

14 August 2008 at 11:26am | IP Logged

JimmyJameskun wrote:

And to add to the confusion, it can also be used to replace the word "said" as in "he was like 'what's up
with you?' and I'm like 'whatever', and he's like 'do you want to go or not?' and I'm like 'as
if'..."
seriously...
;-)

Here in Sweden the word "bara" which means only, is being used in the same way, especially among youths. I found it awful but for some reason I use it anyway... :S
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Sunja
Diglot
Senior Member
Germany
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Speaks: English*, German
Studies: French, Mandarin

Message 23 of 47

14 August 2008 at 12:09pm | IP Logged

Zebulon wrote:

JimmyJameskun wrote:

Here in Sweden the word "bara" which means only, is being used in the same way, especially among youths. I found it awful but for some reason I use it anyway... :S

The Germans don't have anything indespersed like that but they say "gell?" at the end which is the equivalent of "n´est-ce pas" or "eh?/isn't it?" Going north towards south it's "gülle?", "gell/gelle?", "goi?". I mostly use it when I talk to kids.
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Deji
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5441 days ago
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Speaks: English*, French
Studies: Hindi, Bengali

Message 24 of 47

05 April 2010 at 6:31am | IP Logged

But there are a lot of other words you use in any language--in addition to "umm--". When you still can't
express what you are going to say but don't want to lose your turn in the conversation. In English it starts with
"umm" but there is also "..I mean, well.. you know? I mean it's umm...the thing is ..well, after all. I mean, finally ,
yeah well, I just don't get it, I mean hey...that's the thing, you know what i'm saying?"

In french you could say " Alors..bon...ben..enfin..mais alors..en fin de conte, bon, a la fin, comment dis-je...vous
comprenez....pour vrai dire... le question c'est...bon, c'est ce truc qui---, enfin..."

In Bengali you can say "She ke boTe?...Ta boTe..taai boTe...boTei to...boTe emon kothaa?...tai na ki...shotti?....ki
bolcho boTei...bujhle?" These mean: "it is?...that's true...just so...exactly...is it?...so then (lit "what") truly?
...well...you understand?" These are more like responses than actual placeholders.

I found it very important to stay in the language, especially when I am groping for a word. It sounds pretty
funny when you put them all together.

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