Nihongo Notes

Anoo and eeto

At a welcome party held for a colleague, everybody made a short speech. Mr. Kobayashi, the youngest employee at the office, seemed to be nervous, and often paused as in
    Eeto, Kobayashi desu. Boku wa eeto, koko dewa ichiban koohai de, eeto…
    (Well, I am Kobayashi, I am , well, the youngest here and well…)
Mr. Lerner wondered if anoo could have been used in place of eeto, since he had been told to use anoo rather than eeto when looking for the right expression.
In Mr. Kobayashi’s speech anoo could have been used instead of eeto. Both expressions are used when one cannot think of the right word. The difference between the two is that while eeto is used simply to show that the speaker is looking for the right word. Anoo expresses a hesitant attitude in looking for the right word.

Anoo is used to show polite hesitancy as in

    Anoo, sumimasen, chotto ukagaimasu ga.
    (Excuse me, may I ask you something?)

    A.) Ashita doo desu ka.

      (How’s tomorrow?)
    B.) Ashita wa anoo, chotto tsugo ga…
      (I’m afraid tomorrow is not very convenient for me.)
It is also used as a stopgap phrase like eeto, but in that usage too, anoo implies that the speaker is looking for the right expression so that he will not be impolite.

In other words, anoo shows the speaker’s consciousness of the listener while eeto does not. Thus one uses eeto when talking to oneself as in

    Eeto, kyoo wa nannichi datta kana.
    (I wonder what day of the month today is.)
But one never uses anoo when speaking to oneself.
Follow this link for an index of Nihongo Notes
Nihongo Notes is taken from a series of columns that appeared in The Japan Times
written by Osamu and Nobuko Mizutani They are not designed to teach Japanese, so much
as they are to better one's Japanese.

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