Brighton Japan Club has recently been meeting at Brighton Bier Brewery once a month.

On a random Friday night, members of the group both Japanese and non-Japanese come along to relax, enjoy a drink, and meet others with a shared connection to Japan.

Freshly cooked Japanese food is served by Japanese staff.

So far, this event has been very popular.

I have loved it, both the location and the atmosphere - a small corner of an industrial unit on the edge of Brighton turning into Little Japan for the night. 

Jumping from conversations in English to Japanese and back again can be a challenge.

It’s not just switching words, but also switching ways of joining in a conversation.

The listeners role is distinctly different in conversations in Japanese and English.  Whereas in English, we often listen in silence, in Japanese, listening is much more active.  

あいづち Aizuchi (interjections) are frequent in Japanese, the most common of which うん UN sounds very much like a grunt.

The うん UN, like the more formal はい HAI, serves to show the listener is following what the speaker is saying, that their mind hasn’t wandered off.

To try to prove this, I just listened to a random minute of an Asahi podcast where 3 native speakers were chatting informally.

I counted the うん UN interjections. There were 7 of them, including a double うんうん,  as well as  2 ええ EE  (Wow! / Really!) expressing surprise at what the speaker is saying

In comparison, a minute of a random BBC podcast included just one ‘Um’ interjection.

Overuse of aizuchi can be disconcerting too.

After living in Japan for a while, interjecting became so natural it affected my English.

In my tour groups, customers said I frequently made the うん UN sound when listening to them.

Aizuchi made me a bit paranoid. For a while, I feared my English had gone feral.

Aizuchi are noticeable by their absence as well. Conversations in English can seem cold without them.

There must be a compromise. The lonely silences need filling. Grunting can be golden.

To learn more about あいづち AIZUCHI (interjections), I recommend the 15-minute NHK program linked to below, “Letting Them Know I’m Listening”.

#9 Letting Them Know I'm Listening - Activate Your Japanese! | NHK WORLD-JAPAN On Demand