Listening to some people in line in front of me today, and for the umpteenth time getting distracted by the overuse of like, I wondered if other languages have this type of language virus?
Example for the few who don’t know what I mean:
“I was, like, going to call him, but when I, like, looked in my purse, I, like, lost his number, and I was all, like, ‘Oh crap!’”
Also, do they teach that overuse in ESL courses these days?
You might guess that such things are called “filler words”, and wiki (of course) has a list of fillers used in various languages:
See also “discourse marker”.
ETA:
In a few languages, a filler word apparently translates as “like”.
I did not know that - thanks for the link!
The exact equivalent of “like” in Argentina is “tipo” wich means something like eh well “like”
“Y entonces tipo… , le dije que tipo…, se fuera y tipo… como que se enojo and…”
“And then like i was like “go away” and then like he like got angry and”
Is extremely anoying here too.
10 years or so ago I had a few female Venezuelan friends who would use ‘es de…’ a lot.
In Malaysia and Singapore they use “lah” as a filler word which isn’t even a real word. They even use it when speaking English. “No problem, lah”
For the last part (“I was all, like, ‘Oh, crap!’”), is it still a filler word? Isn’t the phrase “I was like” being used as an equivalent to “I said”?
I was about to cite that one, but it’s a little different (IMLE) because it generally seems to incur at the end of a sentence or thought as a way of, I don’t know, making it seem a little more light-hearted or indicating they acknowledge something’s funny or ironic. Or sometimes just to sound “cute.” I’ve also heard “mah” used by HKG girls in similar fashion. But unlike like, I don’t hear those words randomly sprinkled through sentences.
In Japanese there are a couple of true filler words I hear a lot of – “ano . . . .” and (phonetic) “eto . . . .” They seem to have more of a connotation of – wait a minute, let me think, hold on, that’s what I was going to say.
The Chinese equivalent sounds like “Nigga.” You never get used to people walking around all day saying “Nigga nigga nigga…”
I noticed a lot of “¿Viste?” and “¿Que te parece?” filler words and phrases. After every pause, ¿viste?, they seem to fill in the silence, ¿que te parece?
In Montreal, at least, the use of the filler “genre” is currently pretty popular among young French speakers. It means “type” or “kind” (of something), so it’s very close to the English “like” filler.
In Japanese, the filler word that’s closest to “like” is ne (or na, depending on where you’re from.) It’s a particle that’s supposed to be added to the end of a sentence and translates more of less as “isn’t it?” However, many people sprinkle it all over the place. This is especially pronounced among younger women. “Yesterday, he came over to my place” goes from: Kino, kare wa watashi no ie ni kita no to: Kino ne, kare wa ne, watashi no ne, ie ni ne, kita no. (Literally, this, like, comes out as like: “Yesterday like, he like, my, like, place, like, came, you know.”)
In Canadian French, the non-word lâ (originally from là – there), along with tsé (from tu sais – you know) shows up a lot. Tsé, lâ, le gars, lâ, ben lâ y’est venu chez nous lâ… – “You know, like, the guy, like, well, like, he came over to my place, like…”
In French French, là is also used frequently, but it’s usage isn’t quite as extreme as the Canadian lâ
Is it ‘es de’? I may be wrong but I always thought it was ‘este’. Other filler words in Spanish are ‘pues’ (Central America) and ‘dizque’ (Dominican Republic).
Arabic has ‘ya’ani’ which has been adopted into Hebrew, and it sort of means ‘like’.
Talking of which, ‘sort of’ is ‘like’ another filler, ‘you know’.
Can this thread be a pitting too? Pretty please? 
Jay Leno had a 10 year-old guest on his show on May 5th… Alec Greven. Apparently, this kid’s written a book on how to talk to girls, even though he hasn’t had a girlfriend.
I suppose that passes for success?
In any case, this kid wouldn’t stop using “like” in his speech!
“Mom’s want you to clean rooms, so she’s like ‘clean your room’, and you’re like ‘I don’t want to’, and she’s like ‘I’m going to take away your dessert’, and that’s when you’re like ‘okay fine’, and that’s when she’s like ‘okay, that’s good’, like. like. like.”
ice pick in eye
There’s a youtube of him appearing on the Ellen Degeneres show, but out of fear that I might actually harm myself (or the TV), I won’t bother watching it.
I would translate it as, “I said to myself, ‘Oh crap.’” The phrase “I was like” usually (IME) means “I felt like” or “I said to myself”, and is sometimes followed not by any other words at all but by a facial expression reenacting the mood of the moment. I would still call it a filler word because it’s a bit lazy.
The first one in that list is the Arabic “yani.” My wife is Egyptian and I hear this constantly peppered into Egyptians’ speech (didn’t know it was common in other Arab dialects). It’s equivalent filler in English is “I mean.”
All the Bulgarians I know think dobre and aide are commas: stuff you sort of throw down into a sentence and hope it fits. They mean “good/ok” and “come”, respectively. I don’t know if this is an ex-pat thing or if it’s very common. Kyla would know better than I.
You could be totally right. I’m not a native speaker and none of our communication was written 
In Denmark, you can throw in a mild cuss word–sgu or sgu da in pretty much the same places you would say “like” in English. On the island I lived on, people all say ikke også? all the freaking time. I do it too. It gets slurred to ik’osse and is somewhat the equivalent of saying “you know?” in every sentence. It marks you as from Fyn just like saying “eh?” marks you as Canadian.
In Chile, teenagers use “onda que…” (pretty much “like”), and contract “pues” into “poh”. In fact, the further south you go in Chile, the more contracted “pues” gets. In Punta Arenas, the most southerly city, they just close their mouth in the shape of a ‘p’ and cough.