Wednesday, May 13, 2020

Filler Words (Muletillas) in Spanish

Question: In English we have many filler words for when we dont know how to continue on in a sentence, or that can even express a certain emotion (e.g., err...). I am thinking of words such as hmmm... err... like (ooh, I hate that. Hey, I used another one.). What I would like to know is, what are some types of words such as this in Spanish? Answer: My least favorite is you know. In any case, in Spanish those filler words are called muletillas (or, less commonly, palabras de relleno) and are very common. But Spanish speakers tend not to use one-syllable utterances as much as in English. Instead, they tend to use common words like este (usually pronounced as esteeeee, depending on how nervous the person is), esto (or estoooo) or in Mexico o sea (which roughly means I mean). Che is often heard in Argentina. In other areas you may hear es decir (meaning, roughly, that is to say). The err has its equivalent in the sound eeeehh, and em is similar to the English ummm. Also, it is very common to use pues, which has a variety of meanings. Pues can be used at the start of a sentence as a kind of filler while you can get your thoughts together. Or try a ver, which can be thought of as lets see or well see.

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