# Las mujeres hablan más que los hombres: ¿un mito? Women talk more than men: no way!



## heidita

Un estudio que se supone serio serio en Estados Unidos ha desvelado que las mujeres *no hablan más que los hombres*. De hecho, durante el estudio que se puede ver en esta pagina, hombres y mujeres iban más o menos a la par. El más hablador del estudio utilizó en un solo día ¡¡47 000 palabras!! También es cierto que el menos hablador solo 500. ¡¡500!! Vamos, lo que uso yo en cinco minutos si le regaño a mi joya.




> Las *tres personas que más hablaban eran hombres, y uno utilizaba 47.000 palabras*, pero también era hombre el que menos, 500.


 
http://www.20minutos.es/noticia/256193/0/habla/mujeres/hombres/

En fin, en vuestro país, ¿qué impresión tenéis? ¿Hablan más las mujeres que los hombres o es un mito?

*Women talk more than men? Come on......*

*One of the latest studies from the US and Mexico shows that men use more or less the same amount of words a day.*
*This research debunking a stereotype showed the most talking person actually was a man with 47 000 words a day, also the most quiet one: 500! I mean, 500? I use this amount like in two minutes, especially when I am angry.*

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcon.../stories/070607dnnatmenwomentalk.15de052.html

*What is your impresion? Do Women talk more than men in your country?*


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## lamartus

Hola:
Pues la verdad, cuando leí la noticia ayer no supe muy bien como interpretarla. Supongo que habrán tenido un grupo de control adecuado pero en todo caso yo diría: depende. Me parece a mí que esto viene a corroborar el refrán que dice que "unos crían la fama y otros cardan la lana" ¿no os parece?

A ver que opina el resto...

Saludos mañaneros.


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## jorge_val_ribera

Cuando están en confianza, yo creo que tanto hombres como mujeres hablan mucho, sin mucha distinción. Sin embargo, hay algunos casos en que, según mi experiencia, las mujeres hablan definitivamente más que los hombres.

Por ejemplo, con gente desconocida. Yo creo que la probabilidad de que dos mujeres desconocidas entablen conversación en el autobús o haciendo fila es mucho mayor que la de dos hombres.


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## LV4-26

No. Ten characters.


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## jonquiliser

Very interesting. I also know of another study, where the test subjects were talking and then asked questions about who talked the most etc. One of the resulting pieces of information was that everyone, including the women, thought that the women had talked the most, while the time measure indicated the men had talked the most. 

Indicates something about how women's vs. men's talking is understood, I'd say. 

My  personal impression is not that women talk more than men in Finland.


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## heidita

LV4-26 said:


> No. Ten characters.


 
Very explicit indeed. 

¿Ese _no_ se refiere a la pregunta en español? O sea: no es un mito. Hablamos más que los hombres. 

Or are you answering to the English question? No way, we don't speak more than men?


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## Trisia

LV4-26 said:


> No. Ten characters.



This is what I'd like to know, LV4-26: What does the part in blue mean?

To answer the original post, I think it might be appropriate to quote this:



			
				Plato the Philosopher said:
			
		

> Wise men talk because they have something to say;
> fools talk because they have to say something.



I don't think women talk more than men. I know I talk a lot more than most of the men I know, but that doesn't make it a cultural trait specific to all Romanians. In fact, I'd say men tend to talk a lot more than women - in buses, trains and the like.


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## Lugubert

Acccording to an article in prestigious _Science_, 6 July 2007, Male and Female College Students are Equally Talkative


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## heidita

Lugubert said:


> Acccording to an article in prestigious _Science_, 6 July 2007, Male and Female College Students are Equally Talkative


 

Yes, Lugu, that' the research we are talking about. I included a link above.

What about in your country? Do you think this would apply?


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## Wil_the_terrible

Here, in Costa Rica, every one is a big talker, usually, well...except me.


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## ireney

The majority of people in Greece still believe that women are the only chatterboxes around although some have already noticed that men too can as far removed from the example of the Spartans as women can and may I add, also find gossip a very nice past time 

(note dash hint re "ten characters": note the minimum allowed length of any post  )


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## argentina84

jorge_val_ribera said:


> Cuando están en confianza, yo creo que tanto hombres como mujeres hablan mucho, sin mucha distinción. Sin embargo, hay algunos casos en que, según mi experiencia, las mujeres hablan definitivamente más que los hombres.
> 
> Por ejemplo, con gente desconocida. Yo creo que la probabilidad de que dos mujeres desconocidas entablen conversación en el autobús o haciendo fila es mucho mayor que la de dos hombres.


 
I completely agree with you Jorge! Today, when I went grocery shopping, I started talking with the girl next to me in the queue, and then with another one at the exit! Men looked at us...they might have though: "Women" ! hahaha


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## ieracub

Hola:

Según el lingüísta chileno Leopoldo Sáez Godoy: 





> La mujer chilena tiene un ritmo más rápido que el hombre, con un timbre agudo y su afán expresivo es tan grande que es capaz de seguir hablando aun cuando se le acabe el aire de los pulmones.


 JAJAJAJAJA, me meo de la risa cada vez que leo esto. 

Saludos.


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## LV4-26

heidita said:


> Very explicit indeed.
> 
> ¿Ese _no_ se refiere a la pregunta en español? O sea: no es un mito. Hablamos más que los hombres.
> 
> Or are you answering to the English question? No way, we don't speak more than men?


"*Do Women talk more than men in your country?"*
*"No."*..
or, if you prefer...Sí, que es un mito.


My post #4 was meant to show you that, even though I'm a man, I don't talk much. Not all my jokes are unalloyed successes.


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## PABLO DE SOTO

En general no lo sé, pero por telefóno móvil por las calles las mujeres hablan más..
Yo he observado que especialmente chicas jóvenes van hablando por la calle por el móvil en mucha mayor proporción que los hombres, al menos en mi ciudad.
En general creo que las mujeres tienen mayor necesidad de contar sus sentimientos y sus experiencias vitales y eso hace que hablen más.
Los hombres somos más reservados en ese sentido, lo cual no me parece ni bien ni mal.


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## alexacohen

Las mujeres no hablan más que los hombres. Hablan de temas diferentes.


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## aleCcowaN

Un estudio tomó a estudiantes (jóvenes) de ambos sexos y cierta nacionalidad, quienes además eran plenamente conscientes de que eran observados. Por medio de un muestreo de tiempo se extrajeron fragmentos de su actividad vocal diaria y se extrapoló un cierto número de palabras pronunciadas por día, y de palabras diferentes utilizadas por día, sin atender al contenido del discurso -que permaneció privado- y a las ideas transmitidas. El resultado fue un número un poquitín mayor de palabras (total y vocablos) dichas por mujeres que por hombres. Las conclusiones son .... ¡simpático estudio! ¡podrían haberse estudiado tantas otras cosas!

La única conclusión -si es que hay alguna- es que al menos en el grupo seguido parece no cumplirse un antojo popular: el hecho presunto de que las mujeres hablan supuestamente mucho más que los varones.

Cuan serio será el estudio, cuan "concluyentes" sus conclusiones, y cuan aplicable a toda la humanidad serán, es algo por verse. Prometen poco en este sentido partes como la que dice "los tres que más hablaban eran varones -uno habló 47000 palabras- .... (pero por otra parte) el que habló menos también era un varón  - 500 palabras- ".

Yo siempre pensé que las mujeres hablaban tanto como los hombres. Eso sí, por lo menos en mi experiencia cultural y personal, "las mujeres" (ese "gremio" que es amuchado y abroquelado por tirios y troyanas para poder plantear competencias de género), con su capacidad de hablar de 3 cosas al mismo tiempo y cambiar de tema con frecuencia "parecen" hablar más. Si vamos a la mente "estratégica" del hombre, la mujer habla mucho para llegar a pocas conclusiones. Si vamos a la mente "social" de la mujer, el hombre habla demasiado para llegar sólo a conclusiones.

Quizá un estudio futuro mida el contenido de lo dicho y analice los pormenores de las expectativas del hablante de uno y otro género, en una variedad de edades y culturas. Un estudio de esta clase será largo y costoso, y correrá el grave riesgo de llegar conclusiones valederas.


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## Earth Dragon

I did a little experiment with word counts in the posts on this topic up to (and including) aleccowan’s post (“Un estudio tomó a estudiantes…”).  I found that on average, the men used more words altogether, and had an average of 114 words while the women had an average of 59.3 words, and the unknowns (people who as far as I could tell haven’t revealed their sex in their profiles) had an average of 49.3 words.  However, if I take out aleccowan’s post the men’s average would be 39 words. 

If someone posted multiple posts, I added them together and considered them to be one entry in the average.  The formula for average is (sum of the value of all entries) divided by (number of entries). 

I did not count quotes as part of the person’s word count. 

If someone posted what looked like the same thing in two different languages, I only used the English part. 


Flaws in my experiment: 

Women may care more about the subject than men.
I did not know the gender of Jonquiliser, Wil_the, ieracub, or Pablo.  This threw my numbers off. 
Some people did not post in their native language which would lower their vocabulary. 
I stopped after aleccowan’s post, which means that everyone who wanted to talk may not have had a chance yet. 
The few people here can’t account for the whole world.  

Just something I thought I’d point out for the topic.


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## LV4-26

There are two main reasons why you may talk more than others
1. You are more interested in the topic
2. You're that kind of "verbal" person that's wont to make three long sentences when they could just say "yes" or "no". (I'm one of them, even though I tried to hide it my very first post ).

I believe you find as many men as women in the second category.

Therefore, my answer remains "no, I don't think women talk more than men". Maybe I'm wrong, maybe it's more complicated but, to be perfectly honest, I'm not that interested in finding the answer (although I do understand others can be, if only for the sake of breaking a myth), so I won't bother to investigate.


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## Kajjo

Earth Dragon said:


> Flaws in my experiment: [...]



Let me add:

Members of a language forum are not at all representative. It could easily be that language-interested men are more verbal than average men. 
Oral verbosity does not necessarily correlate with written verbosity.
My real-life and every-day experience is that the average woman talks more than the average men. The statistical deviations from average are very large for both genders and exceptions to the rule are common. Personally, I guess I talk much more than the average man or woman. I guess that higher educated men talk more, but this might not be true for women.

Kajjo


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## jonquiliser

My personal experience, if we're gonna get into stating our own perceptions and experiences, is that women who talk relatively much easily get labels such as loose-lipped, whereas men who talk relatively much aren't even perceived as big talkers. My personal experience is _also _that people expect women to talk about different things than men, and vice versa.

EarthDragon,  - representative or not.


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## alexacohen

Well, Jonquil, in my experience - the three most talkative people I know are male.
Only one of them recognizes he is very verbal.
The other two don't.


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## Fernando

What I consider quite impressive is that women can talk during hours on interesting topics such as "What I have done today". Everyone has met a woman that can talk every day with her mother.


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## alexacohen

Ok, Fernando, let's fight a little bit.
I consider quite impressive that some men can discuss for hours if Football Player X did or did not deserve the red tag.


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## Fernando

That is not a good comparison. Football is REALLY important.


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## jonquiliser

alexacohen said:


> Ok, Fernando, let's fight a little bit.
> I consider quite impressive that some men can discuss for hours if Football Player X did or did not deserve the red tag.


 
I was going to say something similar .

Anyway, in my previous post I was making a sweeping generalisation - and although it is true as my personal experience, I find it a bit strange if we're going to get into just whipping up statements for "x are like this and z are like that". Is this really about statistics? I mean, whatever the results and the figures for which group talks how much, there's still the question of what we should make of it all. 

I think it's perfectly thinkable and sayable that in some specific situation the results may be that women talk more, in some other group the result may indicate men talk more. I guess we all know both women and men who talk much. It's meaningless if not downright impossible to establish "who talks the most" (the options being "men" and "women"). But what these kind of surveys and studies, although not formulas that can settle "who talks the most", _can do_ is draw our attention to how people view others talk, in what spirit they talk, what they think of their own talking, or what expectations and judgements they have on other people's talk. 

When someone says to a person that "she just blabbers", for example (to make this example a little more concrete, imagine someone says to the person that she just blabbers on about petty things like what she has done today), I think it may well be an arrogant instance of feeling no need to take this person seriously, more or less equivalent to saying "I don't need to listen to what you've got to say" (perhaps with a feeling of the importance one's own talking has, in contrast to these little banalities). These kind of *attitudes* that lay behind the judgements we make about whether someone talks much or not, too much or too little, interesting or uninteresting, are interesting. 

Looking at these aspects instead, _attitudes and conceptions_, the numbers aren't so important anymore. At least I don't believe they can be fitted into some (any!) mathematical formula, doing that would just distort them and create metaphysical theories around "how things really are". Needless to say, these theories won't match reality, they will just create a reality of their own...


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## alexacohen

Jonquil, the trouble with generalizations is that they are generalizations.
And the post asks that we discuss one of them.
Some individuals, male or female, are more talkative than others. 
Generalizations are always a lie.
We're back at the "Are all Americans paranoid?" and "Are all Australians apathetic?" type of question.


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## Fernando

Other female conversations that can contribute to the myth(?) that women talk more than men:

- Conversations without any possible relation with physical world, such as "How I feel".

- Conversations without conveying "information bits", for a big effort in contextualizing and giving all historical information about a story.

As an example: 

Women's story: "This morning I woke up early, because I had much work in the office and, when I was in the lift, you will not believe what I saw. John Milligan! Yes, Wendy's boyfriend. Wendy was the beauuuuutiful girl we met at Williams' wedding. Anyway, John is very sad because his mother passed away last autumm and he has not recovered. It is incredible how grown-up men can be affected by their mothers' death. 

Anyhow, I began to walk towards the office and, when I turned the corner of Shakespeare with Bacon, I saw a nice and cool dress at the shop window of Zara. It had a green skirt and jacket with a white shirt.(...).
...
...
And then I slipped with a banana and broke my arm."


What a man would have said: "I slipped with a banana skin and broke my arm this morning."


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## jonquiliser

alexacohen said:


> Jonquil, the trouble with generalizations is that they are generalizations.
> And the post asks that we discuss one of them.
> Some individuals, male or female, are more talkative than others.
> Generalizations are always a lie.
> We're back at the "Are all Americans paranoid?" and "Are all Australians apathetic?" type of question.


 
Yup, exactly. So wouldn't it be so much better then to discuss what is meant with that generalisation, or what it means to claim so, rather than buy into the generalisation debate?



Fernando said:


> Other *female conversations that can contribute to the myth*(?) that women talk more than men:


 
'Scuse me, self-evidently, it's not women's conversations that create the myth, eh .



Fernando said:


> - Conversations without any possible relation with physical world, such as "How I feel".


 
Aha, in that case the burden of expressing what "the physical world" is, lays with you. I eagerly await the answer.

The rest of your post, well, I'll abstain from commenting on it. You've stated it all yourself and, ehrm, placed yourself.


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## PABLO DE SOTO

Los españoles tanto hombres como mujeres hablamos mucho más que los europeos del norte.
Cuando voy a la playa me admira ver parejas de alemanes o nórdicos en silencio durante horas mientras las familias españolas o las parejas siempre tienen algo de qué hablar, generalmente cosas insustanciales.
Creo que en España se habla mucho por hablar sin aportar nada .
En los bares observo hombres hablando naderías y en general cuando viajo por Europa no se nota tanto esa charla de bar.
La conversación que pone Fernando la veo perfectamente posible en el círculo en que yo me muevo.
En general es posible que las mujeres ofrezcan más información insustancial y necesidad de de comprobar que las están escuchando con preguntas intercaladas en la charla tipo ¿te acuerdas? ¿qué te parece? ¿te lo puedes creer? a las que generalmente hay que contestar a todo que sí.
Ahora bien, en los países más silenciosos ¿también tienen esa sensación de que las mujeres hablan más?


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## Fernando

jonquiliser said:


> Aha, in that case the burden of expressing what "the physical world" is, lays with you. I eagerly await the answer.



How I feel is clearly not affecting neither the movement of the planets (1) nor the climate nor how much water is in a glass. If I do something (such as drinking the water) I am changing something. 

I am not saying my feelings are unimportant (as a matter of fact, they are very important TO ME), but, for some reason, people disagree with me.

(1) Well, that is a bad example since I am a god and I can move the planets with my feelings.


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## alexacohen

jonquiliser said:


> Yup, exactly. So wouldn't it be so much better then to discuss what is meant with that generalisation, or what it means to claim so, rather than buy into the generalisation debate?


 
Yes, it would, but I don't know if we would get very far. People tend to apply labels to people, whether it is a nation, or a "race", or a sex, or a religion. Why do we need to place people into little boxes I don't know.
Maybe that would make a good question for debate - but I would be making all the questions!


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## ireney

*Moderator's note: Any further posts of exclusively or even mainly personal views will be deleted. Please use the PM function to exchange such information.*


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## Lusitania

Fernando said:


> What I consider quite impressive is that women can talk during hours on interesting topics such as "What I have done today". Everyone has met a woman that can talk every day with her mother.


 

I haven't, although I met many men that can live without their Mami. 

I think that it depends very much on the individual.

Probably women talk more then men in Portugal but it's something cultural, as 30 years ago they couldn't speak their own minds.

I don't know about any studies around here, but among my friends I can see that it's the men or women in general.


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## ColdomadeusX

If you believe all the latest research/ polls and things that pop up then it seems that men talk about the same length of words as women a day.
Recently, an Australian study has come up with the results that men can be quite chatty when they want to be and on average speak the same amount of words (sometimes even MORE!) as women. I think this is pretty valid though because most Aussie blokes I know can yak on for yonks and all you have to do is sit there, look interested and offer them a stubby or a comment everytime they come up for a breather. It's really weird, but I think my Grandfather on average talks more than my Grandmother when it comes to conversations with family.


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## Etcetera

Fernando said:


> What a man would have said: "I slipped with a banana skin and broke my arm this morning."


I would say just the same.

And I just thought that during my four years at University, I frequented mainly lecturs given by male lecturers. Haven't you noticed that male teachers provide really relevant information more accurately and less frequently start to tell their students various "related" stories from their experience?

However, mobile phone advertisiments feature mainly men.


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## avok

Here, where I live, women not just talk more than men but they talk "muuuuuuuch more" than men. And also all the men in my life have spoken less than all the women in my life. If one of my female friends asks "do you think I've lost weight?" and if I say "no, you look the same" without realising the trap, she will start talking and never stop until the end of the day!


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