相槌 Aizuchi - Japanese 4 Morons-61: Guest Sensei Hikosaemon

[squigi3lover]

say you were writing something, would the "fillers" be added in?

[jomon324]

@squigi3lover I'm obviously not Hikosaemon or Gimmeaflakeman, but I think that using these fillers in text form would only work if you were in a very very casual situation, such as a chat room or instant messaging. Similar to how in english we type things on comments as if we were, like, saying them (see what I did there?), ya know, that's probably when these fillers would be appropriate in text form. Definitely not in formal writing like essays or reports.

[xxdeathkillazxx]

ありがとう

[cking5100]

wow. you really do use "ano" alot, but your japanese sounds extremely good so i really don't care.

[HonestGamer1]

subbing to him right now. great lesson

[kmah88]

my university class teacher would always say "souuuuuuu sou sou" when someone asked a correct question ~ so cute

[kmah88]

i had another teacher that would always say "jaa" to get back on topic if she wandered on to a tangent or to switch topics (like how in english we say "anyway...." . do a lot of japanese people use ja? i've never really heard anyone else say it.

[Gimmeaflakeman]

@kmah88

Many people say Jaa.. one of the most common times is when you want to say goodbye.

[xoluvan1meox]

@kmah88 yes actually my sensei did as well ^^ and it is common ^_^

[kinutakoen89]

"yappari neko kamoshiranai"(?)

[kinutakoen89]

I like the $5 kingyou poster from Singapore :)

[novanine]

Cool idea.

I use these filler words, especially 'um', a lot in English so I may as well start using them in Japanese.

[allgoo19]

Eeeeto neh, ano neh, sonde motte neh...

Datteba yoh.. ^_^

[Moonstream360]

i love you thank you so much for these videos!

[LEO11111111222211111]

Oh! thank you Hiko-san!

I often examined English-Aizuchi on Japanese internet. but, I was not able to trust it 'cos a Japanese persons to teach.

Aizuchi is very important for me in talk.

[aghabeypasha]

Best teacher ever; so clear. thanks a million.

[nteck1b]

lol 超暇T-shirt

[wehrmanj]

Good stuff, I used to hear "ano" very frequently and often multiple times in a row from Japanese people (when I lived in Japan). Thanks for the guest lesson!

[bznarroz]

very VERY helpfull, please make more, thks!!

[Ido013]

haha nice, how to not sound too much like a gaijin, thanks for the tips~

[nisamneznam]

sore wa empitsu desu!

[11812842]

aaa sou desu, né? :]

[thegakuranman]

Nice video man! One of the things I always try to tell Japanese exchange students is to practice English aiduchi so that they sound more natural. Learning Japanese aiduchi really does help - right down from the ums and ers to pushing yourself to say 'itai' when you bang you knee or something.

[acromel]

Presumably they don't have the same stigma as with English?

Anyone that uses lots of `ums' and 'errs' in English will not sound very articulate - and I mean native speakers. :o)

[draftlove]

「あの・・・」とか、「ちょっと・・・」とか何気なく日本人は使­ってるけど、これを外国人に説明するのはけっこう難しいね。

逆に日本人には、Englishの「so」、「well」などが­理解しにくい。

[mirandansa]

""Sou desu" is more like "It is is" literally."

I would say "Is so":

Sou desu ka? = Is that so?

Hai, sou desu. = Yes, (that) is so.

(Here the Japanese "sou" and the English "so" accidentaly share the same sound and meaning.)

[DopeSpace9]

great vid! can't wait for more

[Carlyle118]

レッスン！good one too, very useful information. Thanks! ^_^

[DavePerry2012]

Another good one is "toka", but GBM covered that.

I'm still lost on any literal sense of "desu", since I always hear it as "it is" or "I am", etc.. But if sou literally means "it is" then "sou desu" would mean "it is it is".

[JessicaHalo]

Haven't you ever heard a Japanese person say "Nn, sou, sou, sou." "Yes, it is, it is, it is."

Anyway, desu is really only is, as far as I've heard. It and I are not part of desu. They're omitted parts of the sentence. "Jessica desu!" literally is "Is Jessica!" English has variations of is like am and are, but they're all the same word. I think you should be lost on sou, not on desu. Sou is the one that changes. Like "That's right" in the video.

[acromel]

I tripped over that for ages - the details tend to really bug me.

I think it's just a contraction of ある

です = ではあります

The theory falls down when people use です with themswelves though, as an introduction. Since いる should be used for people and ある for objects.

A bit like じゃない　is a contraction of ではありません

I might be way off though! :o)

[JessicaHalo]

But if you say "I am not a student" you say "Watashi wa gakusei dewa arimasen." So the theory falls down before you even shorten it to desu. (If that is where desu originated.)

Sorry about the romaji. No Japanese pack installed on this computer. ;-;

[acromel]

Hmm. For your example the (tenuous) theory still holds, as it's the noun (student) that doesn't exist. So じゃない　or ありません still fits.

I'll be the first to admit that this is just my attempt to make sense of if though.

[JessicaHalo]

A little bit of further clarification. "Jessica desu!" would be translated into "I am Jessica", even though that's not what it literally is. Frequently in textbooks, they'll go "(I) am Jessica" to signify that the I is actually omitted from the sentence.

[acromel]

Ah, found this

- - - - - -

Strictly speaking, desu is a contraction of -de, the particle indicating subject complement, (see copula) and su, an elision of gozaimasu (a polite copula).

- - - - - -

Sorry that I've posted this to a couple of messages - but it can be a real pain to try to keep track of message order and comments on YouTube.

[HarriHaffi]

Good lesson! So Ano is just a filler word...and you can skip the ha-particle!? Most useful information!

MVHH

[mirandansa]

"So Ano is just a filler word..."

It's also a demonstrative pronoun, like "that":

ano pen = that pen

ano ko = that girl

[acromel]

You've tripped over a homonym!

Hiko is talking about ano, the interjection, rather than the spatial indicator ano (彼の)

Same pronunciation but written differently and with different meanings.

[elitemathlete]

Is it true that there are only 6 letters in the chinese/japanese alphabet?

[Gimmeaflakeman]

Where did you hear that?!?!?!?

[mirandansa]

Perhaps you mean vowels? There are 5 vowels in Japanese.

[Pheenixz]

Great vid, great tips! I think Hikosaemon sensei has another subscriber!!

[Gimmeaflakeman]

Good! This guy is really smart!

[teamtippmann]

thanks for the tips

[teamtippmann]

hummm sounds convincing! lol

[Borgey06]

Couldn't of said it better myself, the only one that I don't use much is やっぱり, can't wait to see whats next.

[StreetEnglishTV]

Hikosaemon san! Thanks for teaching!

[Gimmeaflakeman]

You got something for me?

[mTANGproductions]

Aizuchi: "ano... ano... ano..."

[klynik]

good info. Thanks Hiko.

[eirinbe]

Japanese people do say 'ano' a lot x) Especially an actor named Matsuyama Kenichi, I think he says 'ano' between every third word x)

[draggt03]

i use ano and eto a lot and im american lol...think its just habit i havnt broken since being in japan like 8 years ago

[anfield22]

man hiko its amazing how you haven't forgotten how to speak english

[matman125]

This guy is smart. I want to see him teach.

[enbejey]

YEAH! Leave it to Hikosaemon! Great video. Thanks for the tips. Looking forward to more.

[Mattinmotion]

Great video. Thanks!

[acromel]

...sorry for the multiple posts, the non-Roman text seems to confuse things.

[watcher8o]

I also hear what sounds like a slightly drawn out "Nn" usually when somebody is listening to a speaker in a conversation. Seems to range from an affirmative to a very passive sound. Yet another common acknowledgment, I believe.

[Fourthworth]

chotto ano etto nanka hora etto ee maa iya dakara nanka un iya hora teiuka aredayo are etto uuunnto gyaaaaaaaaaa!!

[Hikosaemon]

LOL, couldn't have said it better myself!

Peaec

[Gimmeaflakeman]

Thanks for doing this man!

[EatItBeatIt]

I did come to a conclusion that "something was weird" about the chotto so I completely duplicate what strifezilla said. Lol. The chotto part of the video was "eye-opening". Not to quote anyone besides myself. :]

[Strifezilla]

Always wondered why I heard chotto so much in conversations, when it didn't really feel like 'a little bit..' context

[Hikosaemon]

Hey there, "chotto" gets used a lot at the start of sentences. It has an effect of making the sentence softer. "Chotto, ashita umi ni ikou to omotteiru" = I'm just/kinda thinking about going going to the beach tomorrow. Leave it off and you make a firm commitment - adding it makes it more vague and non committal, which is quite common. Getting a feel for the context and how you hear it is more important than a translation - this is actually a hard word to translate I think , but very important.

[systemjap]

Hikosaemon is great =D