Unironically I find that repeating what your correspondent said but as a question shows your engagement, especially when they said something more expressive.
Something more expressive?
Something they'd expect you to react to more vividly, like something surprising, touching or shocking.
Something surprising, touching or shocking?
I like to see I'm being listened to, and this kind of repetition can be a sign of that. But it can easily turn into a mechanical repeating if used carelessly.
Hey I wasn't paying attention and it absolutely did coax me into elaborating! It sorta proves my point, I think.
Well, I would add an "Oh shit, " at the beginning, so it would be like
Oh shit, something more expressive?
Oh shit, oh shit?
Yes, oh shit!
Shit happens when your ass is expressiv.
I can never work out if Kojima is autistic or if that's just how Japanese is when badly translated.
It's all his games as well.
Props to Norman and Troy because they carried the living shit out of DS2...
I can't remember where I read this, but IIRC it IS a Japanese thing. I mean, anyone can draw a conversation deeper by asking questions, but the Japanese do have a thing for picking one word and making it a question.
If I recall correctly?
Nani?
Japanese society is inherently autistic
Saying ehh ehh hai hai soo desu like Link when he's jumping around to tell people you're still listening (they apparently cannot tell by your face alone, I wonder which group is unable to do so as well... 🤔)
This is called "aizuchi" in Japanese or "backchanneling" more generally and as hard as I try I CANNOT find this paper that I read while studying Japanese linguistics but I remember there was a frequency analysis of time between backchanneling in both English and Japanese in both male and female listeners, and the difference was huge. Something like, female Japanese speakers backchannel every 2 seconds while male English speakers backchannel every 30 seconds.
Yes aizuchi was the term. Slightly annoying for many other culture because it feels like someone wants to intrude into what you're trying to say, all the time. I swear if I want to ragebait my friends I do stuff like this in our language lol. Also there are women in shows, podcasts etc. whose "job" is just to do the aizuchi constantly without contributing to the conversation reall in any other way.
Blind people?
Incredulous Snake
Though, I mean, people around him will say shit like "Holy fuck, Snake, those are zombies!" so it's actually pretty sane of him to be skeptical.
Those are zombies?
Eventually you need to reach for an exclamation mark:
-- Yes, Snake, zombies.
-- Zombies?!
You may also want to keep adding both in order for as long as the conversation holds.
“You mean those things from the movies!? Now’s not the time for jokes Hal”
“Well Snake, what I mean is, zombies is the closest word I could think of to describe them to you.”
“To be more specific, they’re actually a result of human experimentation by the Patriots during the Cold War that…”
25 minutes of codec calls and/or cutscenes later
“La Li Lu Le Lo!?”
5 minutes of codec calls and or/cutscenes later
“Shoot them in the head, huh?”
“Well, that’s the non-scientific way to say it, but remember snake…”
10 more minutes of codec calls
“They’re visible with thermal goggles, huh.”
“That’s right, remember to hold L2 and cycle between item types with the up or down buttons, and then use the left or right buttons to equip a specific item. And don’t forget you can quickly tap L2 to equip or unequip an item.”
God I love this. It is so on point it makes me wanna...
Kojima?! Is that you?!
Psycho Mantis?
Second floor basement?!?
Colonel! What's a sublevel foundation doing here?!
Whenever I hear someone do the repeat question in conversation I usually follow it up with either that or "A Hind-D?" under my breath
I forgot where I heard it but supposedly this an actual psychological trick to get people to reveal more information
more information?
Is it called a question?
Nah, specifically just repeating the last word/bits of their last sentence vs asking a full question. It's about when the other person is on guard against you, if they want to tell you everything anyway I can't see it make a difference either.
¿Question?
It even works, it makes the other person slightly uncomfortable with what they just said and often they will try to justify their words with more information. Only works against obvlivious people who have their guard down tho.
Does so in bold; becomes Solid Snake
Anon becomes Snake?
Snake?
Snake?
SNAAAAAAAAKE!!!!
Snake?
Autism?
virtual mission?
Virtuous Mission, Snake.
Hmmm…
conversationalist??
fixed
Fission Mailed!
For someone with ADD myself it helps to hear the same information again just worded slightly differently.
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