16. A system for controlling movement of a virtual animated entity during a transition from talking to listening, the system comprising: a processor; a first module controlling the processor, approximately at an end of the virtual animated entity talking, to select transition movement data based at least in part on a syntactic analysis of speech to be spoken by the virtual animated entity and further based on a user culture determined by an analysis of prosody associated with received speech from a user, the analysis being independent of an identity of the user and the transition movement data not based on a previously-stored template for controlling movement of the virtual animated entity; and a second module controlling the processor to control the movement of the virtual animated entity to indicate that the virtual animated entity is approximately finished talking and will soon listen for speech data from the user based on the user culture, the movement including movement after the virtual animated entity finishes talking to signal the user to speak.
17. The system of claim 16 , wherein the transition movement data is selected from a transition database.