"Will you stop that!"--Listening Miscues Between Cultures [Or] Listening—the Secret of Japanese Success

“Will you stop that!” implored an American to her grandson fluent in Japanese and who had just returned from a sojourn in Japan.1 He had unconsciously transferred Japanese listening behavior to his conversations in English. He could not help but provide the speaker the rapid fire of nonverbal cueing by a listener in Japanese of vocalizations and head nods. Such nonverbals contribute toward Japanese backchanneling (active listening cues) to be three to four times that found in the conversations of U.S. Americans.