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"Well, um..." in different languages | ||
Tags: Speaking | Multilingual | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| Emily96 Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4216 days ago 270 posts - 342 votes  Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish, Finnish, Latin | Message 17 of 22 19 July 2013 at 6:35am | IP Logged | ||
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"alors" means "so" in french, and can be used just like in English:
alors... que veux-tu faire aujourd'hui? so... what do you want to do today? you could also use "bien" (literally, "well") but it comes out more like "ben" ben... non, je ne veux pas aller à la plage well... no, i don't want to go to the beach 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Michel1020 Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4805 days ago 365 posts - 559 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Dutch | Message 18 of 22 19 July 2013 at 10:26am | IP Logged | ||
I did say "a bit" and "now and then". I think native speakers can tell better than me if "well what do you think" is impolite or not. My first opinion would be it is not. My second opinion is "Well what do you think" to be a little bit more agressive than "what do you think". This difference shows "well" is not unusefull but often this kind of words don't bring anything to the conversation and people who use them have a tendency to put a lot of them which turns to be quite annoying for the listener. It is not because many, if not all including myself do something wrong that you have to learn to do the same. Fillers are often very imprecise and we have a tendency to hear the meaning we wanted to hear. Beside I would trust more a person is following what I am telling her if she answers with actual words or actions than if she replies with fillers which could come out of her mouth automatically. If the only logical answer to "..." is "... you do or ... you don't" why don't simply say "I do" or "I don't" ? As for buying thinking time you only need to do that with sounds on the phone in a face to face conversation body language should be enough to show the other part you are thinking about your next words. And better than buying time with sounds do it with words. I will try to step into - just for the laugh from the sentence replacing "beurk". They say if you don't do it on purpose with the right foot - it will make money coming in soon. The right foot being the left one. If you still want to use fillers you are better acquiring them in context than getting lists and translations. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4632 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 19 of 22 19 July 2013 at 11:48am | IP Logged | ||
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In German, you simply say "ähm", "äh", "öh", or "also".
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| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 4918 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 20 of 22 19 July 2013 at 6:27pm | IP Logged | ||
If you're looking for someone's opinion on something you're talking about or looking for agreement on doing simething, for example, in Italian it's usually "Che ne dici?" or "Che ne pensi?", which isn't rude or aggressive at all. R. == 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| vogue Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4042 days ago 109 posts - 181 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish Studies: Ukrainian | Message 21 of 22 22 July 2013 at 12:26pm | IP Logged | ||
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Beh is also a good word in Italian that means 'well.' insomma meaning 'whatever' or 'so yeah....' is also used
often enough. And boh which means 'I don't know.' it's a filler phrase. "perchè non viene con noi." "boh. Penso chè sia stanco.." 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| overscore Triglot Newbie CanadaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4351 days ago 23 posts - 38 votes Speaks: French*, English, German | Message 22 of 22 26 July 2013 at 3:40am | IP Logged | ||
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Quebec French as said earlier is "ben", exact same pronunciation as "bain" (bath). Perhaps in a diphthong, as is
customary for QF. This filler is overused in Quebec, lol. In France, the nasal vowels are mangled beyond relief and you get something like "banc". (seat) German, either "naja, .." or "tja, .." Japanese, I'd say: "ano....". anyone? 1 person has voted this message useful |
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