というの / っていうの in informal, conversational Japanese

[quiver]

Hi.
Recently I’ve been listening to a podcast for learners (Let’s Talk in Japanese) and this structure is used a lot by the speaker (a Japanese teacher). I don’t understand why it is used most of the time.

I think one of its uses is to mark a new word that he is a about to explain (e.g. example 5), second occurrence), but there are many other instances that don’t seem to fall in this category. Here are a few examples from the podcast, which I have transcribed as best as I could:

1) In an episode about food – certain foods are specific to certain countries (noun + っていうの):

けっこう、ね、食べるものって、国によって違うっていうか、ほかの国では食べないけど、その国では食べるものっていうのもあると思います。

2) In an episode about taxes – at this point, he’s been taking about the consumption tax for a while (noun + っていうの):

昔は、この消費税っていうのは、日本はなかったんですけど、初めて消費税ができた時は....

3) In an episode about mountains (noun + っていうの)

特にね、一番有名な山、日本で一番高い、有名な山と言えば、富士さんですね。で、その富士さん以外にも、たくさん有名な山とか、きれいな山、登って楽しい山っていうのがあるので、今日はね、その山について...

4) Talking about Fuji-san and the fact that few (少ない) Japanese have actually climbed it (interrogative sentence + っていうの)

俺もね、どのくらい多いか、多いっていうか、どのくらい少ないか、知らなかったから、今ちょっとね、インターネットで富士山に登ったことがある人ってどのくらいなのかなっていうのをちょっと調べてみたら...

5) Talking about mountain sports (verb + っていうの)

じゃ、登山じゃなくて、山を歩くっていうのは、ほかに何があるかというと、まずはトレッキングですね。トレッキングっていうのは、登山とちょっと似てるんですけど...

How would you explain the function/nuance of っていうの in these sentences? I apologize for the length of the post, but I felt that having more than one example would be useful to come to a general understanding.

 

[KLAUSED]

It's a filler. っていうの can be left out in all of your examples without changing the meaning except for the first っていうの in ex. 5) (山を歩くっていうのは→山を歩くのは).

 

[gengo]

I think one of its uses is to mark a new word that he is about to explain

I don't think that is related here. For that purpose, we have the simple は, which introduces a new topic that will be discussed.

Your question is a very good one, because we don't really have anything equivalent to this in English (or Italian, as far as I know), but it is a very common feature of Japanese, so it's great that you are learning it. As you improve in fluency, you will find yourself inserting this phrase into your speech often, since it is how natives speak. In formal writing, however, it is generally omitted, since it is often just a filler as Klaused has said.

富士山に三回も登ったGengo

 

[SoLaTiDoberman]

っていうのは is a colloquial version for というものは.

昔は、この消費税というものは日本にははなかったのですが.

I think というものは is not only just a filler but also has a function of making the sentence more indirect, modest, and milder.

I think the English counterpart for this kind of expression is "so called", "kind of" etc.

There used to be no "consupmtion tax" in Japan. ----> There used to be no so-called "consumtion tax" in Japan.

He saw the expression of distaste on Masao's face. ----> He saw the expression of kind of distaste on Masao's face.

These so-called "fillers" may be just redundant if you're a Strunck or a White, but I think they are useful to make the tone of the sentence milder and modest, which can make our communication better and more smooth from a certain viewpoint.

相手に配慮して断定をさけ婉曲表現を用いる日本文化であり、（同様の表現は英語でも見かけることができますが）、相手を慮るという意味で、
極めて広い意味の「敬語」の一種だと僕は思っています。「コーヒーのほうをください」の「のほう」表現と似ているところがあり、Strunk & White的な思考パタンの人、左脳人間的な人からは、不要な表現、無駄な表現、あるいは誤った表現と思われると思いますが、ＥＱの高い人、右脳人間的な人にとっては、人と人とのコミュニケーションにおいてある意味で非常に大事な「潤滑油」的、「謙譲表現」的な広義の「敬語」的なものに該当するのではなかろうか、と考えます。

 

[KLAUSED]

っていうのは is a colloquial version for というものは.

っていうのは is a colloquial form of というのは not というものは. っていうのは cannot be replaced with というものは in some cases (e.g. テストで100点取ったっていうのはウソだけど。)

Fillers like these are not recommended in writing. Students may use them to fluff up their work to meet character count requirements, which is generally frowned upon.

Edit: I realized the thread topic says "in informal, conversational Japanese". Yes, it's quite common to use っていうのは in daily conversation. A pet phrase for some, a pet peeve for others.

 

[quiver]

@KLAUSED -san, @gengo -san, @SoLaTiDoberman -san, thank you for your replies and perspectives. Isn't it interesting how different people feel differently about っていうの ?

When I study a language, I like to try to repeat and imitate the syntactic patterns I hear, so eventually I might end up using っていうの in casual conversation myself, as Gengo-san suggested.