Aizuchi: Why it's impolite not to "chime in" in Japanese 

"Yabai desu ne!"

Omg lmfaoooo

like the guy in the toilet booth next to me trying to out fart and out grunt me

@@commentfreely5443 👏why are you 👏like this

スゲェェェェェ

Homologous to phone talking, when you can't show you're listening to someone you make it sonorous. "Yes? Okay. Right. Ah."

Yes you're right, he completely missed the point.

Its definitely interruption by western standards. The speakers speak over and through one another. There isn't a pause, like English speakers would have. Also, its not just "yeahs" and "uh-huhs" its branching and tangential. It's just hard to give short examples because it is definitionally not short. Americans regularly describe Japanese people as being curt or rude for finishing their sentences or cutting in with an answer, when what they are actually doing is giving you their full attention. No, in Japan the behaviour isn't seen as an interruption, but this video is targeted to westerners who are unfamiliar with it.

I wouldn't call it interruption, but I haven't really heard it since there weren't any real examples in the video. Interruption, to me, is taking your turn in the conversation before the other person is finished. This seems more like helping the other person with their turn because they don't feel comfortable speaking without accompaniment.

It's just fucking annoying.

In fairness, you hardly ever hear English speakers say "I'm sorry, could you repeat that" either. They say either, "what?", "(I'm) sorry?" "What's that?", "Pardon?" "I didn't catch that" or any number of phrases which do not sound remotely like "could you repeat that". Not to say that English speakers _never_ say "could you repeat that", but you can live in the UK or the US for years and years without ever hearing anyone say it. There's more than one way to skin a cat.

I've heard could you repeat that said a couple times. However it's mostly used as confirmation for phone numbers or lists of things... just to check that you got it right...

@@Gilmaris that's his point though, Japanese people don't say "what" either, they show they didn't get something by getting silent

@@carwyn3691 But that wasn't _my_ point. My point was that "moichido ittekudasai" is perfectly correct, even if you never hear anyone say it. Just like in English, "I'm sorry, could you repeat that" is _also_ perfectly correct - even though you never, ever hear it.

Useful. I could know when im talking to much and people get bored. (Happens too often;u;)

How nice that you done such a step. Tell us more, and good luck in Japan

How did you get accepted? Is there a long process needed?

Joe A. they mean the process to move and live there...

So-ka.

@@JoeARedHawk275 You fill out an application, film a video in which you describe why you want to move to Japan (it has to be in excellent Japanese), and take nude photos from every angle. Then all Japanese cititens inspect those and vote on whether you would be an acceptable addition to their nation. If at least two thirds of all citizens vote yes, you're accepted.

Same in Greece

Haha so true.

We do that too in italy😂

In Latin Europe too :P

Sounds like The Philippines 😂

It can be. But that depends on context. And a whole bunch of things that are impossible to deduce from text. XD

Oh really? The house downtown? But why? Oh, shes on vacation, right. Parents coming?

Kuralthys in this case it was sarcasm, however agreement between speaker and listener is in all languages. And I must say, nice Sarcasm yourself. I really appreciate others poorly constructed sarcasm...

Ah, now see, that's precisely my point. No sarcasm was involved on my part. ;p As I said, the primary indicators for sarcasm are largely impossible to convey in text, thus, mistakes are easy in both directions. Trying to be sarcastic in a youtube comment is a dangerous game to play...

@Crimson think more like those quick back and forth answers after phrases on phone calls. You'd tend to naturally say these short acknowledgments/reactions, and when you don't, the other person may even ask if you're hearing or if there was some problem with the line.

But children are taught not to interrupt when an adult is speaking. In USA it is OK to interrupt if you are asking a question, but usually it is preferred that you wait until the speaker finishes their sentence.

And in Italy, if you don't interrupt, the Italian keeps on talking for hours...

You're that ninja

Gloryholes?

Metal Gear?

a hind D?

So does Otacon loop on his own aizuchi when he goes: snake?! SNAKE!! SNAAA-A-A-A-A-KE!!!!

Platine Spanish, the word “che” doesn’t seem to mean anything at all, other than being a call to attention. Also, it’s weird just how fast or incomprehensible it can get, if I actually listened to my pronunciation I probably only say a third of the letters, but everyone understands me perfectly. Great video, by the way! I’m glad to see more content from you.

I've heard some older West-Flemish folks kind of do something similar to aizuchi but only with the pronoun conjugations of yes and no. Something to likes of "Oh, joak joak joakjoakjoak!" which will start as a response in a break of the speaker but continue well into and over the rest of what the speaker has to say.

You may have done a video on this, but ingressive affirmatives comes to mind. Your Japanese was way better than ok btw.

When Norwegians are having a casual, relaxed conversation, the listeners occasionally say an interrupting "ja" (yes) by inhaling, not exhaling air. Never saw a quirk like that in any other European language.

I wonder what are some of the international/universal sounds we make to express opinion indirectly.

As a Canadian, yeah, this makes sense. Every now and then I’ll start talking to a coworker, assume I have their attention, and then 30 seconds in, they’ll pull out an earbud, and go, “sorry, were you talking to me?”

Tony Blakeney yeah I was thinking I “interrupt” people like that all the time it shows that you are listening

true, lot of cultures do the same.

@@ovaloctopus8 I'm French and personnally I find it very rude when it's too loud, usually we do backchannel but by moving our heads or just going "hmmhmm" or saying "ah okay". If it's too invasive I lose my train of tought and feel like the other person is going to cut me

Axelle yeah in French from what I’ve seen you guys are always saying d’accord and that’s basically the same as what I mean. Not too invasive but it seems more natural than just staying silent

I say continuing phrases while I'm listening and I'm east coast Canadian, but to be fair, we have an extremely animated and verbose accent

wundrweapon how long you been studying? Have you ever heard of an app called bunpro? It’s good for beginners and intermediate and as of right now it’s free :)

頑張って

@@justarandomgamer6309 I might give it a go, we'll see. I have bigger problems to clear up first. As for how long, it's hard to measure between my intensity and long hiatuses because of other work, plus that year or so that I just plain stopped... I dunno. I guess I'd say I'm at the level of someone about 8 weeks in

@@AnimilesYT はい、ありがとう

@@justarandomgamer6309 What and how does bunpro teach? I've mostly only used Tae Kim's Guide, which are mostly notes. Is bunpro the same or more like, say, Duolingo?

Congrats! Which University? lumière 2 ?

hispanophone* serait mieux; là, ça sonne presque comme si tu disais "ceux qui parlent un mélange d'anglais et d'espagnol" (Et félicitations)

Congratulations!!

5 17 2019 Hey Medium D. Speaks, Congratulations! How great is that-VERY! Have FUN, study, learn all that you're able, be safe & well. v

@Aya-I Officiellement s'appelle Langues Étrangères Appliquées, mais c'est la linguistique quand même

A very merry unGary to you

what a coinkidink, my name is also not Garry.

Let me guess..... your twin brother is named Garry and your father is a bit slow of thought.

Nick Zardiashvili : so what's your name then? is it Steve? 🤔

@@travissmith2848 In ancient Rome, that was exactly how they named twins. The eldest was given a name, ie. Gary, and the other was simply called Not "that name" ie. Not Gary.

I'm Japanese too. I do'nt think so🥢 I think that he just can't speak English well🍵🍡

Same in Mexico, if someone is completely silent I just stop and say "Me Estas escuchando????" (Are u even listening?)

Lol I know!!! I'm Mexican too and I even stop my narrations to wait for a response from the listener even if I'm not done with whatever I'm saying.

Probably an average amount though. The point is in Japanese you do it what seems way too much.

Same in Chinese

That's a thing all over the world..

Not sure if sarcasm?

We all loved the hard word.

I'm turbo late but I got curious so I did a bit of research. It seems like the guy you're talking about is 山田晴久 who owns a restaurant in Tokyo since 2009 (which is open to this day!). His bibliography says he worked at a restaurant in Toscana (and some other places) for three years. His restaurant is called Cucina Italiana HARU; you might wanna visit there if you ever get a chance to come to Japan!

@@tamatama1037 That's crazy. Reminds me of when my grandpa was in Japan, in a restaurant where the guy spoke no English, and he saw a mural signed with the callsign of a radio station from Pittsburgh, where he was from.

Hhhhhhja.

I have in fact not thought about this

JA PAPPA

Jo, ja, mmmh...

"chhhju". it's more of a northern scandinavian thing though

Brandon Davidson as someone who lives abroad from the South, I’ve met quite a few people from many different places and I’ve noticed I speak a bit differently in conversations (doing what you said). I’ve met some people who absolutely hated it!

@Shufei Southern etiquette is basically a long game of deciding if you want to strangle them in conversation and deciding to do that first on the off chance they piss you off anyway.

Reminds me of conversations in the Pacific Northwest. We tend to communicate most things silently, which is why we tend to come off as cold and distant, but we also can interject with entire sentences to keep a conversation going when need be.

Right? I am in southern AZ and if anything, people consider it rude if you don't vocalize your interest or come across as trying to lecture them (classrooms and seminars are obvious exceptions). Sometimes I have problems with this because I can get really quiet when I'm focusing and people assumr I'm not listening. Other times, I'll be in a more responsive mood and just my luck, it'll be that one person who considers an "Mhmmm" a valid reason to end the conversation and walk away.

That's a bit different than this jaoanese thing.

You better have gotten a promotion!

@Shufei I think you're referring to the breath that comes when someone finishes speaking and wants to "take their turn" because they aren't actually listening to what's being said and just want to interject with their own know-how. This is similar to what OP has said but definitely different. At least from my experience since the breath they're talking about isn't a deliberate, deep inhale but more like a casual draw that, if the listener is actually paying attention to, can be heard without it being overly audible.

@Shufei Boy, you sound like you know a lot about this. Can I see your psychology degree?

I mean that's just how social awkwardness is. Some people will give you a chance and understand you're more than just how you socialize, while most will just write you off as "rude" or "weird"

@@FAMOUS4EVER3000 Japenese people also generally have more patience for their own than they do for foreigners, so it probably wouldn't be terrible.

@@viperblitz11 Ehhhh, idk about that. If you are japanese, you are expected to know what to do. If you are a foreigner making an honest effort, most will be very accomodating.

I literally lose my train of thought if someone interrupts (ADHD) or if they're too loud and I have no idea what I would do for this

Eisenwulf666: Here it‘s more like distance is polite. You give the other person all the „space“ to talk which shows that what they are saying is important

@@denisenova7494 yeah i understand that. Btw nice profile picture

Children in public schools are taught not to interrupt the adults when they are speaking. So they learn to be passive in their listening skills.

The German language specifically has a lot of operators at the end of a sentence. If someone backchanneled while a German was speaking, they'd be likely to miss the operators and they might give the opposite feedback they would have to the whole sentence. My German is barely conversational, but English shares a lot of similarities. The idea is that you don't talk while someone else is speaking so that you don't miss any of their words. There is room for backchanneling, but it's usually very short or silent. We tend to make up for it by looking at the person; the more we look, the harder we're listening.

Slovenians do it a lot as well, at least here in the Littoral, so it could be Italian influence.

Can you explain what you meant by "yes to a no"? What would that sound like in conversation?

I’m a native English speaker & I had the same yes to a no confusion when I was a kid

@Drakilicious I mean, it is a lesson, from an expert, so that seems like a fair assumption to me. Especially from something with as particular a technique as opera. But yeah, that disconnect between academic language and real language can be pretty intense, especially with the huge variety of dialects that Spanish has, and I'm told a lot of the US learns a compromise between multiple dialects, making its practical use a hair cumbersome.

I haven't heard that in a long time.

Twisted Logic thank you

I heard this in his voice oh my god

😂 Is that Prof Farnsworth? 🤔

Would it be correct to say that "Hai" is closer to "yeah" than it is to "yes" then?

Or "OK! Understood and received"

In the USA, we are taught not to interrupt the speaker until they finish their thoughts. We show we are listening by using eye contact and nodding our heads in agreement.

@@nerychristian Politicians, however, are taught to interrupt other politicians as much as possible.

@@nerychristian As well as being taught not to interrupt, as Americans, we give a form of feedback that repeats small parts of what the speaker was saying. Just to show we understood them.

@@herrakaarme lol this is why we mute them now.

I think we do the same in British English, it sounds very normal to me

@@samtownend6744 I'm German and I think it's normal here too. Most of the time it's more like a hmm or ok or ja. But the idea is the same.

I imagine that "schuup" sound to be the noise you make when you stub your toe and get startled lol

Same here. If I'm interrupted even a few times by "active listening", I just tell the other person I'm done talking with them.

In Germany we make these hmmms, yeahs and uh-hus basically when we're NOT listening, because we're annoyed by the whole talk or the person who speaks just to pretend we're listening.

I agree. I think it's just a matter of what you're used to and your preferred style. I actually feel less heard when I'm not allowed to get out a complete thought uninterrupted. Even when the person I'm speaking to is dead silent, I can tell if they're engaged by their eye contact and body language, and what they add to the conversation with their responses when it's their turn. I prefer that style, but it's a cultural thing, with me being a Canadian.

@@mitchellpeterson8644 A lot of us who struggle with nonverbal cues aren't great at nonverbal expression, either. If it really throws you off to the point where you can't focus, there's nothing wrong with saying so, but I hope you try to be at least a bit understanding about it since a lot of people really can't indicate listening (and in my case, I can't listen effectively at all) without staying engaged with at least tiny bits of verbal output.

Yeah, if someone kept doing that to me, I'd probably just stop talking.

The things some girls find the need to talk about...

Huge fan, thanks NativLang!

行きましょう

同じく

this guy is awesome, he can pronunce everything

bakago I know!! he’s got such great content too

@@bakago4746 not even

You can watch interviews with japanese bands on RU-vid to see how this sounds. I find it absolutely annoying, especially with female interviewers who pitch their responses way too high. >.

No but really it's more annoying (to western ears) than mmms and uh-huhs. it would be like having a conversation in English like So last week, I went on a trip to Japan (To Japan, you say?) Yes, and I got into this sushi restaurant (oh, sushi, yes?) And I haven't been in a sushi place before (OH REALLY??? That's interesting)I thought I was just going to get a small sushi snack (yes yes yes yes yes) but the the chef brings out this huge tuna fish (TUNA?? and then and then ?) and he slices it in front of us (hahah oh really????)

@@noahdominicsilvio2472 I still think English speaking people do that a lot. It's not difficult at all to imagine that sort of conversation. Nonverbal cues are also really important. For me, it'd go like: "So last week, I went on a trip to Japan (Oh, neat! *eyes widen* ) and I got into this sushi restaurant (Mmm, I love sushi!) Me too! But I 'd never actually been in a sushi place before (*look of surprise* Really? Wow!) Seriously! So, I thought I was just going to get a small sushi snack (*nods* right, right?) but the the chef brings out this huge tuna fish (uh oh! *look of suspense*) and he slices it in front of us (*suspense is resolved, big nod* Ahh, like sashimi?)." I don't believe most westerners would find that sort of thing annoying either (well, most Americans, for sure... Europe might be different). If anything, it's an extremely charismatic behavior because you're showing enthusiasm for what the person has to say. You're not just showing that you're listening, you're showing that you WANT to listen, and everybody loves to be listened to. Personally, I'm shit at telling stories but am a very good listener, and people definitely respond to it. The difference, I think, is that Japanese people are more aware and deliberate about it (as is often the case) because their culture values politeness a lot more than others -- whereas in the west, it's a behavior that either must be implicitly learned through experience or only happens naturally when a person is sincerely engaged in a conversation. Westerners that are really bad at it and/or are just never sincerely interested in what other people have to say will definitely be perceived as "cold" and disengaged.

@@jincyquones That's true. But that makes it less of a language feature. In any case, it's definitely more subdued in non-Japanese styles of speaking (I say non-Japanese because it's still not applicable to my native language). Whereas we'd react by non-verbal cues, Japanese speakers tend to react by verbal ones. This kind of verbal interruption/reaction, it's not even necessarily personality-based. Every Japanese person I've talked to always "interrupted" me enthusiastically when I talked to them whereas only a few people who speak non-Japanese languages interrupt me verbally; most of the time only the "poppy" personalities do this.

I hate those noises.

@@noahdominicsilvio2472 Nothing could be more irritating.

*rangu lol

Neetibu* too I think.

"nechibu rein" if it's pronounced /neɪtɪv leɪŋ/ "natibu rangu" would be the Japanese pronunciation of the (imaginary) English words /natɪv laŋ/ aka "not'iv long" Sorry for the IPA. I don't know any other accurate phonemic system for English.

how is that prescriptivism you're literally just using sounds that dont exist in japanese it's just wrong by all standards

@@RubelliteFae i think it'd normally be "nētibu rangu" but yea

It's not a "type," that's what it is. He does a lot of that since a lot of the "dialog" in Metal Gear games is somebody telling him something. If Metal Gear was first localized now, the English version would likely drop most of his interjections since they are a 100% Japanese phenomenon that doesn't make much sense in English. Back in the 90's localization was still a very new thing, video games weren't appreciated as a narrative medium, and translation studies weren't as advanced as they are now.

True. In English, if someone is repeating everything the speaker says, or is asking to many questions, it is seen as being condescending.

@@nerychristian That's a big reason why autistic people are often mistaken as being condescending or impatient. Personally, I can't indicate that I'm listening with nonverbal cues, and indeed I can't even listen effectively if I'm not keeping my verbal engine engaged with regular responses, even if it's just of the "mmhmm" variety. I will zone out within seconds if I'm not using verbal expression to stay tied in with the speech I'm listening to.

Try to be a bit open-minded, zeryphex. Some of us literally can't successfully listen to you without doing that.

In a way, we are businesslike: Some business book from a hundred years ago said smiling a lot is good for business. Now everyone fake smiles :) There I go doing it myself...

That feels like a better description of us British.

Man I wish, this country is a dumpster fire lmao

I'd say things would probably improve if you stopped thinking it's a good idea to run a country like a business :l

2020 came to visit you: "The country would run a hell of a lot better, you say?"

Wanting to preserve your culture and race is not the same as racism. Every culture should be free to protect what is theirs.