Filler (linguistics)

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In linguistics, fillers are sounds or words that are spoken to fill up gaps in utterances. Different languages have different characteristic filler sounds; in English, the most common filler sounds are "er" (British spelling, "uh" in American spelling) and "um".

[edit] Filler Words in Different Languages

In Italian, e is one of the most common fillers
In Mandarin Chinese speakers often say zhege zhege zhege ("this this this")
In Japanese, e or to or some combination e...to are often used; also the filler word nani ("what") is common
In Spanish, fillers are called muletillas; the most common are este ("this") and o sea ("I mean"). [1]
In French, euh is most common; other words used as fillers include quoi ("what"), bah (or ben), tu vois ("you see"), and eh bien (roughly "well", as in "well, I'm not sure")

A common pitfall among language learners is using fillers from their native tongue. For example, "Quiero una umm.... quesadilla". While less of a shibboleth, knowing the kadigans or placeholder names of a language (e.g. the equivalent of "thingie") can also be useful to attain fluency, such as the French truc: Je cherche le truc qu'on utilise pour ouvrir une boîte ("I'm looking for the thingie that you use to open up a can")