{"id":19,"date":"2012-04-06T13:30:34","date_gmt":"2012-04-06T18:30:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nihongo.3yen.com\/?p=115"},"modified":"2012-04-06T13:34:29","modified_gmt":"2012-04-06T18:34:29","slug":"sound-more-japanese-with-interjections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.guidetojapanese.org\/blog\/2012\/04\/06\/sound-more-japanese-with-interjections\/","title":{"rendered":"Sound more Japanese with interjections"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I tutor Japanese, I try to correct non-Japanese interjections whenever possible, the most common one being “umm”. Even the most skilled speakers including native speakers sometimes need to fill the air with fillers to buy a little time to collect their thoughts. But it doesn’t sound very Japanese to say, \u300c\u79c1\u306e\u8da3\u5473\u306f umm \u30b5\u30c3\u30ab\u30fc\u3067\u3059\u300d. I also suspect it taps your English part of the brain and makes it difficult to stop thinking in English. That’s why I gently remind my student to say \u300c\u3048\u3048\u3068\u300d instead of “umm”. It’s a simple change that can instantly make your Japanese sound more natural. Have you been saying “umm” while speaking Japanese? If so, a quick tip from me, replace it with \u300c\u3048\u3048\u3068\u300d.<\/p>\n

Here are some other interjections to practice:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. \u3048\u3048\u3068 – Err, umm<\/li>\n
  2. \u3042\u306e\u3046 – Umm (usually to get somebody’s attention)<\/li>\n
  3. \u3042\u308c\uff1f – huh?<\/li>\n
  4. \u3048\u3063 – eh?<\/li>\n
  5. \u3042\u3063\uff01 – Oh!, Ah!<\/li>\n
  6. \u3053\u3089\uff01 – hey!<\/li>\n
  7. \u3046\u30fc\u3093 – hmm (wondering\/pondering)<\/li>\n
  8. \u3078\u3048 – really? (surprised\/impressed)<\/li>\n
  9. \u3044\u305f\u3063 – ouch<\/li>\n
  10. \u3088\u3044\u3057\u3087 – when exerting effort such as picking up something heavy<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    When I tutor Japanese, I try to correct non-Japanese interjections whenever possible, the most common one being “umm”. Even the most skilled speakers including native speakers sometimes need to fill the air with fillers to buy a little time to … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,8,14,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-beginner","category-culture","category-misc","category-vocabulary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.guidetojapanese.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.guidetojapanese.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.guidetojapanese.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.guidetojapanese.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.guidetojapanese.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.guidetojapanese.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.guidetojapanese.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.guidetojapanese.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.guidetojapanese.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}