とか in casual speech

[IsaacDavid]

I've seen that とか is used very often in casual speech and i want to ask if always it have its usual meaning of: things like that.. or sometimes is used like a filler,with no meaning at all.

 

[mdchachi]

I can't recall its use as a filler. Just in the usual manner. Also なんとか (somehow) is a commonly used word. I think I hear this more than とか in other circumstances.

> 間に合ったね → You made it (on time)
> え、なんとか → Yes, somehow

 

[nice gaijin]

I use it a lot when listing off things, it's like the 〜たり、〜たり、〜たりする of nouns

 

[IsaacDavid]

のだ(んだ) also i see that is used very often.it always have that sense of explanation?

 

[IsaacDavid]

So?

 

[nice gaijin]

のだ(んだ) also i see that is used very often.it always have that sense of explanation?

it's fair to think of it that way, and if you're using that structure in a question, you're eliciting an explanation or asking for some reasons.

Honestly I use this a lot just because I'm used to speaking casually, and it's super easy to just use the dictionary form and tack a ~んです/ですか at the end of a sentence to make it polite. It doesn't change the meaning of the sentence so much that it would throw people off, depending on the context.

 

[IsaacDavid]

In this video とか is used so much that i naturally thought that it may be used sometimes as a filler:

 

[IsaacDavid]

To remove my doubts,in this video always that とか is used have his original meaning isn't?

 

[nice gaijin]

To remove my doubts,in this video always that とか is used have his original meaning isn't?

Yes, they're using it to indicate an ongoing or incomplete list. Similar use to など

 

[IsaacDavid]

Yes, they're using it to indicate an ongoing or incomplete list. Similar use to など

Thanks for your patience.

 

[nice gaijin]

In summary, fillers are generally sounds that don't have any specific meaning, so they can be inserted without necessarily changing the meaning of the sentence. In English this could be peppering a sentence with "umm"s or "like"s, or ending with "know what I mean?/know what I'm saying?/ya feel me?"

In Japanese, there are "I'm thinking/processing" words and phrases like ええと, or なんだろう that can be seen as "filler" sounds as the speaker forms the following sentences. One of my favorite phrases like this as a non-native speaker is なんていうんだっけ？, like "how do you say?"

However, the terms you've brought up serve a particular grammatical purpose, and though they may be used frequently in conversation, it doesn't necessarily make them "fillers," and they couldn't just go anywhere to create the illusion of a consistent train of thought.