rapid positive minimal responses
transcript of one side of a phone conversation I heard today:
moshi-mosh, [name]-dess.
hai.
hai.
hai hai.
hai.
[long pause]
hai.
mm.
hai.
mm.
mm.
hai hai.
mm.
mm.
mm.
hai.
and then a few words I didn't understand and a goodbye. The above took about two minutes. I assume useful information was exchanged. Katie once told me that a japanese friend of hers said you could get through 90% of a conversation in japan by continually saying thank you, I'm sorry, yes, excuse me, I'm sorry.
moshi-mosh, [name]-dess.
hai.
hai.
hai hai.
hai.
[long pause]
hai.
mm.
hai.
mm.
mm.
hai hai.
mm.
mm.
mm.
hai.
and then a few words I didn't understand and a goodbye. The above took about two minutes. I assume useful information was exchanged. Katie once told me that a japanese friend of hers said you could get through 90% of a conversation in japan by continually saying thank you, I'm sorry, yes, excuse me, I'm sorry.
random bits cobbled together by j-dub
3 Comments:
Ah, I now get why one of my student workers (who hails from there) responds to everything I say with either a "thank you" or "I'm sorry." Usually our conversations look pretty amusing to outsiders, I imagine ("Good morning, Sam." "I'm sorry.") ("Can you reshelve these magazines?" "Thank you.")
my roommate in college was japanese, and i have to say i heard this exact conversation not less than three million times. reading that really sort of took me back. hai. hai. hai hai hai.
except sometime in the middle he might look at me and go "joooooowwwsh!!"
it makes it difficult to communicate when you ask a yes/no question and you get "yes" as an answer, though in fact the other person was just acknowledging that they heard you and didn't necessarily understand you.
James--love it. "Thank you, head librarian, may I have another?"
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