[zedpm]

This is interesting. I've just started having video meetings with a colleague (not Japanese) who aggressively interjects these words when I'm speaking, to the point that I find it distracting. I'm simply not accustomed to having someone say "mmm hmm" several times during a single sentence, and I find I start to lose my train of thought.

[yamazakiwi]

We're opposites. I completely lose track of my thoughts and my mind starts to wonder if I don't interject or use small affirmations throughout a conversation. Half the time I interrupt people is because I literally won't remember 30 seconds later what my thought was because there will be a avalanche of other thoughts during that time. I feel like a conversation that is not collaborative is not a conversation.

Unless you're telling a long story in which I generally will try not to interrupt, but one has their limit to being spoken at.