Spanish "filler sounds" when you are thinking about what to say next

Question

I bet this has been asked before, but search engines are failing me

What do you spanish speaking people grunt when you're thinking on what to say next, or rather: how would you put it in online chat?

I'm talking about the english "uuuuhm" or "eeeh" (we use "öööh" in swedish, almost a mixup of "uh" and "eh" )

It's the silliest things that are fun to learn

I was wondering this same thing the other day...good question! - --Mariana--, Oct 10, 2010

And thanks for giving it a decent topic description :) - okiaji, Oct 10, 2010

Answer 1

I think the sound I make when I'm thinking about something while I'm speaking is mostly "eee" (not "err"), and I guess it is the most common. In fact it made me grin when I read this question, as only a couple days ago I watched an interview with Dan Restrepo (President Obama's senior advisor on Latin America), and the guy was very fluent in Spanish, with only a couple of glitches in his vocabulary during the whole interview. However, what gave him away pretty quick -and made him look quite less fluent than he actually was- were his american style grunts (hmm).

Tehehe :D - okiaji, Oct 10, 2010

Answer 2

I haven't heard any filler sounds used to retain the speaking role in a conversation the way there are in English and French, but they do stretch some words out at times.

Answer 3

These are from the book Spanish for Gringos, A ver... Let's see..., Well... Pues..., Uh...Este..., What I mean is... O sea... OK... Bueno..., That is to say... Es decir...

Answer 4

"er" seems universal. A colleague speaking one day in a Spanish language class spoke for about five minutes but said very little.

Without the "er" which can last three or four seconds, inserted between most of his words, his talk would have lasted one minute. It blends in without a pause between the end of one word and the start of the next so it sounds like he was thinking about his topic whereas, in truth, he was thinking about his vocabulary and grammar! (He admitted it to me afterwards!).

Definitely not universal! In Chinese they say "niga" as many times as they need to until they find the right word. - lazarus1907, Oct 10, 2010

Something tells me black people wouldn't be amused with that custom.. :) - bill1111, Oct 10, 2010

Answer 5

I think that she's looking for sounds in Spanish, just like we have in English, such as:

Hmmm (I'm thinking, wondering, etc.)

Mmmm (That's good, I like that, etc.)

Yep. :) - okiaji, Oct 10, 2010

You're right, she did say "grunt" - swampy, Oct 10, 2010

Answer 6

Well I have seen my Colombian friends write "hmmmm" or just "mmmmmm" while chatting on facebook. I really don't know if it's like "mmmm, I'm not sure" or "mmmm, sound's like a good idea!" I still have yet to find that out!

Both. But you wouldn't use that "mmm" in the middle of a sentence like you'd use a "hmm" in English. Only to emphasize things like what you wrote, that you are in doubt or pleasantly surprised. - bill1111, Oct 10, 2010

Answer 7

Here's a link to a thread on the same question that got lots of good replies that you might be interested in.

No worries about the search engine not working for you. It often seems lacking to me, too. It would be nice if you could organize by date, users who answered/asked, etc instead of just getting every thread one of your words appears in.

Answer 8

You would use "pues..." while talking so could you do the same?