English Filler Words: How to Stop Saying “Um” and Pause Naturally

Are filler words bad?

Not in themselves. Fillers are the sounds and short words people use while they plan what to say next: “um,” “uh,” “well,” “so,” “like,” “you know,” “I mean.” Native speakers use them in everyday conversation, and an occasional one doesn’t hurt your English. They become a problem in three cases: when there are so many that they bury your message, when they come from your first language, and when a pause turns into a long silence in the middle of a sentence.

Herbert Clark and Jean Fox Tree, who studied several large collections of recorded spontaneous speech, argue that “uh” and “um” are real English words that speakers plan like any other word (Cognition, 2002). They propose that speakers use “uh” to announce a short delay and “um” a longer one, and that this can tell the listener the speaker is searching for a word, deciding what to say next, wants to keep their turn or is ready to hand it over. In listening experiments with English and Dutch speech, Fox Tree found that hearing “uh” helped listeners recognize the words that came next, while “um” neither helped nor hurt (Memory & Cognition, 2001).

So an “um” is not a mistake. Where you pause matters more. Parvaneh Tavakoli compared 40 learners of English with 40 native speakers telling stories from pictures (ELT Journal, 2011). The learners paused more often, and often in the middle of a clause; fixed phrases they used as a whole had very few pauses inside them. In a study of learners of Dutch, the fluency ratings that untrained listeners gave were best predicted by pauses and speaking speed, while repairs, going back to fix what you said, added very little (Bosker and colleagues, Language Testing, 2013).

Put together: you don’t need to remove every “um,” and you don’t need to be afraid of correcting yourself. Keep your pauses short, and put them between ideas rather than inside a phrase.

The fillers native speakers use, and when to hold back

These are common fillers and hedges in everyday English. Once you know what each one does, you can use a few of them on purpose instead of by habit.

Dictionary.com records these uses too. It defines “um” as an expression of doubt or hesitation, notes that “you know” is often a filler and lists an informal “like” used to fill a pause or express uncertainty. The Collins entries on the same site describe “well” as an expression used to preface a remark or gain time and list an informal “actually” as a parenthetic filler.

Fillers from your first language that slip into English

When you are nervous or searching for a word, the fillers of your first language are often the first sounds that come out: you have used them thousands of times. They don’t break any English grammar rule, but they tell the listener you stepped out of English for a moment. Swap them for English ones and practice until those come out just as automatically.

If you speak Japanese or Korean

A long えーと or あのー can be hard to notice, because it doesn’t feel like a word. Swap it for a short “um” or “let me see.” If you use なんか the way English speakers use “like,” leave both out in formal talk. Korean 음 is already close to English “um,” so you can keep it. 그… and 저기… are Korean words, so replace them with “um,” or with “the thing is…” when you are starting an explanation.

Watch your listening sounds too. If you nod along with はい、はい or 네, 네 while the other person talks, the English version is a mix of “uh-huh,” “right” and “I see,” not “yes, yes.”

If you speak Spanish or Portuguese

Spanish “este” and “eh” are hesitation sounds like English “uh,” so swap them directly. “O sea” means “I mean” or “that is to say” (Wiktionary), so its English match is “I mean,” used only when you are actually rephrasing. “Bueno” has a direct match in “well.”

Brazilian Portuguese “tipo” is used much like English “like,” so the habit transfers straight into English. “Né?” comes from não é, “isn’t it?” (Wiktionary); if you end many sentences with it, you may end up saying “right?” just as often in English. Once in a while is fine; after every sentence, it sounds like you need the listener to confirm everything. “Então” at the start of an answer maps neatly onto “so.”

Better ways to buy thinking time

A filler buys you a moment. When you need more, use a phrase that tells the listener you are thinking. It sounds deliberate, and it keeps you speaking English.

1. Use a stalling phrase

Rotate them. “That’s a good question” before every answer stops sounding like thinking and becomes a filler of its own.

2. Repeat or rephrase the question

Saying the question back gives you a few seconds and shows you understood it: “My biggest strength? I’d say it’s staying calm under pressure.” “What would I change? Probably the first week of training.” If you are not sure what was asked, turn it into a check: “So you’re asking how I’d handle a late delivery?”

3. Signpost your answer

Signposts announce the shape of your answer before you have all the words: “There are two reasons.” “First… Second…” “The short answer is yes. The longer answer is…” Once you’ve said “there are two reasons,” you know where the answer is going, and each signpost is a natural place to pause.

4. Describe the word you can’t find

When a word won’t come, don’t stop and search for it. Describe it: “the place where you check in your bags,” “a kind of small sofa.” The listener may give you the word, and the conversation keeps moving. Look it up afterward.

A pause drill: swap fillers for silence

A short silent pause can do the job of “um” and sounds calmer. The hard part is getting used to the silence. This drill takes about ten minutes; the steps and timings are our suggestion.

1. Read with planned pauses. Read the model answer below aloud. Stop for about one second at the end of every sentence and breathe in. Don’t fill the gap.
2. Read it again, smoothly between the pauses. Say each sentence as one piece, then pause. The phrases stay whole; only the gaps between them are silent.
3. Retell it in your own words. Put the text away and talk about your own job or studies. Each time you feel an “um” coming, close your mouth and pause instead.
4. Answer a new question. Pick a question from the list in the next section, give yourself 60 seconds and keep the same rule: pause between ideas, not inside a phrase.

Notice where the pauses fall: after each sentence and after the signposts “First” and “Second.” A pause inside a phrase breaks it up. “I work as a… nurse” is harder to follow than a pause before or after the whole sentence.

Record, count, repeat: a weekly filler check

Fillers are hard to hear while you are speaking, so record yourself. Once a week:

1. Pick a question and record a 60-second answer on your phone. Don’t prepare; answer the way you would in a conversation.
2. Listen back once and make a tally: one mark for each English filler, a separate mark for each filler from your first language and a mark for each long silence in the middle of a sentence.
3. Circle the filler you used most. That is the one to work on this week.
4. Record the same answer twice more. Replace that filler with a pause, and use a stalling phrase where you froze.
5. Keep the recordings and compare them every few weeks.

• “What do you do, and what do you like about it?”
• “Tell me about a trip you enjoyed.”
• “What’s a skill you’d like to learn, and why?”
• “Describe a problem you solved at work or school.”
• “What would you change about your city?”

Public speaking clubs use the same idea. In Toastmasters meetings, the Ah-Counter notes filler sounds such as “ah,” “um” and “er,” filler words such as “well,” “so” and “you know,” and overlong pauses, then reports them in the evaluation part of the meeting.

Two free tools on this site can do part of the counting in Chrome, Edge or Safari. The mock interview asks interview questions out loud and, after each answer, shows its length, your pace and the filler words it caught. The talk mode of the speaking rate calculator listens for 30 to 60 seconds and shows your words per minute and the fillers it caught. Both match a fixed list (um, uh, er, ah, hmm, basically, actually, literally, you know, I mean, sort of, kind of) and leave out “like,” “so” and “well.” Browser speech recognition also drops most real “um”s, so treat the number as a minimum and keep your own tally.

For a fuller baseline, the free English speaking test in the Fluently app is a conversation of about four minutes that estimates your CEFR level and scores five skills, fluency among them.

Fillers in job interviews and presentations

Job interviews

An interview is the place to cut the casual fillers, “like” and “you know,” and keep the useful ones: “well,” “let me think” and repeating the question. Three habits help:

• Prepare the first sentence of your key answers. “Tell me about yourself” and “Why do you want this job?” are predictable. With a ready first sentence, you don’t start with “um.”
• Use a structure. For behavioral questions, the STAR order (situation, task, action, result) tells you what comes next. Our guide to English for job interviews has the method, sample answers and more interview phrases.
• Take a second before you answer. A short silence after the question is fine. If you need longer than a second or two, name the pause: “Let me think about that for a moment.”

Practice Daniel’s lines with the trainer, then answer Rachel’s questions about your own job. Notice the three tools: a stalling phrase (“Let me think for a second”), a signpost (“two things. First… Second…”) and a repeated question (“Why do I want to leave?”). For a full run with timing and a filler count, use the mock interview.

Presentations and meetings

In a talk, use silent pauses: they give you time and give the audience a moment to take in what you said. Fillers can slip in between points, when you are moving on and have nothing ready to say. Prepare a transition for each of those moments: “Let’s move on to…,” “That brings me to…,” “Here’s the second point.” Learn your first sentence by heart, and if you lose your place, stop, look at your notes and pick up again with “So, where was I? Right…”

On a phone call, the other person can’t see you thinking, so a long silence can sound like the line dropped. Say “One second, let me check” or “Let me think about that” out loud. Our guide to English phone call phrases has more lines for putting someone on hold and asking them to repeat.

Common mistakes when you try to stop saying “um”

• Aiming for zero fillers. If you try never to hesitate, you may freeze instead. Aim for fewer fillers, not none.
• Swapping one filler for another. Replacing “um” with “basically” or “actually” in every sentence only changes the sound. Replace it with a pause.
• Using one stalling phrase for everything. “That’s a good question” before every answer becomes a filler too. Rotate two or three.
• Speeding up to avoid silence. Talking faster leaves you less time to plan the next phrase. Slow down a little and let the pauses happen.
• Pausing inside phrases. “I’m looking… forward to it” breaks a phrase that should come out in one piece. Learn common phrases as whole chunks and pause between them.
• Practicing only by reading aloud. When you read, the words are already there, so there is little to fill. Fillers show up when you answer in your own words, so practice answers too.

How practice with an AI tutor helps

The real test of your pauses is a conversation where someone is waiting for your answer. In Fluently, you talk with an AI tutor by voice, like on a phone call. You can describe your own scenario for a role-play, such as a job interview you have coming up, a team update or small talk with a new colleague, and answer in real time, without a script.

After your turn, a card can show a grammar fix, a more natural way to say your sentence (the way a native speaker would put it) or a better word, and the conversation keeps going. Your scores for pronunciation, fluency, vocabulary, grammar and coherence update as you practice. The fluency feedback shows your speech rate and the filler words you used most, such as “like” or “you know,” with a count for each. It counts words and phrases like these, not sounds such as “um” or fillers from your first language, so keep your own tally for those.

Fluently is free to start. Take a free AI speaking assessment to see your level, then practice with games that build your vocabulary and pronunciation. Conversations with your AI tutor come with Fluently Premium.

Practice pausing in real conversations

Get the Fluently app and take the free AI speaking assessment to see your level, then practice with games that build your vocabulary and pronunciation. Conversations with your AI tutor, where you answer out loud in real time and get cards after your turn, come with Fluently Premium.

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