How to you say “I understand“ in English?

[Hedgehog12345]

Hello,

I am German (though my profile say English is my native language this is not true. I just do not know how to change my profile) and have a question.

When an individual tells you something in German and you understand what he is telling you, one can say “verstehe“, which means “I understand“ or “aha“ and than the other person sees that you get what he is saying. What do you say when talking English and you want the other person to know you understand him. Is there a short word you can say or must one say “I understand what you are saying“?

Thanks a lot.

[Saim]

The first expressions that come to mind are "I see", "that makes sense" and "I get you"; or maybe even a simple "yeah", "oh, OK" or "uh-huh".

I don't think you'd really use "I understand" in that context in English, unlike many other European languages. It sounds a bit formal, or like you understand why someone behaved in a certain way. It's not really equivalent to "I see" or "that makes sense".

[linguoboy]

The first expressions that come to mind are "I see", "that makes sense" and "I get you"; or maybe even a simple "yeah", "oh, OK" or "uh-huh".

Several people I know like to use "Got it!" but that sounds too brusque to me in most contexts. I only really find it acceptable when you're giving someone instructions and time is short (e.g. rushing to prepare a meal); otherwise it sounds dismissive. For whatever reason, I don't feel the same way about "Gotcha!"

There's also "I feel you," also something I've heard but don't tend to use.

I associate "I feel you" with African-American Vernacular English. IME, AAVE-speakers often use "(You) feel me?" to solicit confirmation when speaking. I don't recall hearing this from non-speakers, only the affirmation "I feel you".

By the way, there's nothing that says you have to create your own thread to ask questions in instead of creating a new thread for each question, but learners often do this in order to keep from cluttering up the various groups with lots of very short threads.

[Gormur]

Understood, I get it, I got it, I get you

I got you is different though. It expresses spotting someone or doing them a favor