Sometimes I see Japanese people start their written english sentences with “Anyway” or “Actually”. What is the Japanese word that normally gets used to start these sentences? Is it とにかく or ところで or それでは？ I’m very interested, because it’s a strange way to start a conversation in English. “Anyway” and “Actually” are used to change topics, not to start conversations. It’s very natural in English to just begin with the sentence, and not put any lead-in words in front of it. I can see why that’s confronting to Japanese people! When speaking, we sometimes start a sentence with “So…” as a way to soften what’s coming next. But maybe that is more like えっと or なんか. But you could use it to start a story in a casual way if you like! For example: “So I was on the way home from work the other day, and …”