To reduce filler words without sounding robotic, stop trying to catch every “um” while you speak. Record one minute, mark the fillers afterward, find one repeated cluster, replace only that cluster with a silent planning pause, and retry the same prompt.
The four steps are awareness, context, pause, and retry. The aim is not zero. It is to find the moments where planning gets harder and change one repeated habit without flattening your natural speech.
Method
Change one planning point
First recording
Retry
What is actually happening when you say “um”
Spontaneous speech is assembled while you deliver it. You are choosing the next idea, retrieving words, shaping a sentence, and monitoring the listener. A filled pause can appear while part of that planning is still underway.
That does not make every filler useful. A repeated pattern can compete with the message. It does mean that a single total is not enough to explain what happened.
Separate five measures:
- Count: How many marked events occurred?
- Rate: How many occurred per minute?
- Type: Were they “um,” “uh,” repeated words, restarts, or another habit?
- Clustering: Did several appear close together or in the same sentence position?
- Context: What were you trying to do when they appeared?
Use rate to compare similar attempts, not to grade yourself against a universal standard. Six fillers in an improvised answer, a rehearsed introduction, and a relaxed conversation do not necessarily mean the same thing.
Why the pattern matters more than zero
Researchers studying task-oriented conversations have found more disfluency when the speaking task demands more planning. That gives you a useful question to ask: Where does planning get harder for me? It may be before a name, while choosing an example, or when moving to the next point.
Hesitation is not always meaningless noise to the listener. Experiments suggest that people can sometimes use it as a cue that new information is coming, and “uh” and “um” have not always produced the same result. Our research article explains what one word-recognition study found about “uh” and “um”, and another looks at why a few fillers made short stories more memorable.
None of that is a reason to add fillers deliberately. It is a reason to stop treating every filler as the same mistake. Look for a repeated pattern that distracts from the message, then work on the planning moment behind it.
How to reduce filler words naturally
1. Awareness: record before you correct
Choose a realistic prompt. Answer an interview question, explain a current decision, or introduce one presentation section without reading a script.
Record for one minute. Do not stop or restart. Listen back and mark only what you hear clearly:
[um]and[uh]- repeated words, such as
[we we] - abandoned starts, such as
[I wanted, I decided] - “like” or “so” only when the word is functioning as a repeated hesitation
[pause]when a silence seems relevant
Count after you finish. Keep the marked transcript because location matters more than the final number.
2. Context: find one repeated cluster
Describe one pattern in a sentence: “Most fillers appeared before key nouns,” “I said ‘um’ at every transition,” or “I repeated words when I changed direction.”
Choose one cluster, not every imperfection. A specific cluster gives you something to practise. A total only tells you that something happened.
3. Pause: replace the cluster at a clean boundary
Choose a place where silence will not split a phrase in half. Useful planning points often appear before a new sentence, list item, example, or central detail.
Practise one short silent pause there. Do not insert dramatic gaps throughout the answer. Research on pause placement found that pauses inside a clause sounded less fluent than pauses between clauses.
4. Retry: change one thing
Answer the same prompt again. Keep the content broadly similar, but do not memorize a transcript. Focus only on the selected cluster and allow other natural hesitations to remain.
Compare the attempts:
- Did the chosen cluster occur less often?
- Did the pause sit at a cleaner boundary?
- Did the words after it begin more clearly?
- Did the second attempt still sound like you?
The goal is more control, not a performance scrubbed of every sign of thought.
Before and after: fix the planning point
First attempt
Last Saturday I went to, um, the garden center because I needed, um, a larger pot for, um, the lemon tree on my balcony. The assistant suggested, um, a terracotta one, and I bought it because it drains better.
The fillers cluster before key nouns and noun phrases. Before retrying, reduce the idea to three anchors: garden center, larger pot, lemon tree. These are prompts, not a script.
Natural retry
Last Saturday I went to the garden center because I needed [pause] a larger pot for the lemon tree on my balcony. The assistant suggested a terracotta one, and, um, I chose it because it drains better.
The retry still contains one “um.” That is fine. The distracting cluster changed, and the pause now gives the speaker time before the central detail.
Try this one-minute filler word practice
- Record a one-minute first attempt to one realistic prompt.
- Mark each filler, repeat, restart, and relevant silent pause.
- Circle one repeated cluster or location.
- Choose one clean pause point that could replace only that cluster.
- Record a second attempt to the same prompt.
- Compare the words immediately after the selected planning point. Do they begin more cleanly?
One retry will not necessarily change a long-standing habit. Repeat the exercise with similar prompts and check whether the same cluster returns.
Why too much self-monitoring can sound stiff
Speech already requires you to choose ideas, find words, and watch the listener. Adding “catch every um now” gives your attention another job and can pull it away from the next idea.
Review after the attempt. During the retry, hold one planning point in mind.
When this advice does not fit
Leave an occasional filler alone when it does not form a distracting pattern or interfere with understanding. Practise in the context that matters because a relaxed conversation does not reproduce an interview or prepared talk.
Do not count every “like” or “so” automatically. Both can perform ordinary grammatical or conversational work.
Frequently asked questions
Are filler words always bad?
No. Filled pauses can reflect planning and can affect how listeners process what follows. They can also distract when they form a noticeable pattern. Judge the type, location, clustering, and context rather than treating every “um” as damage.
How many filler words are too many?
There is no useful universal number. Use your count or rate to compare similar attempts. A pattern is worth addressing when it repeatedly competes with the message or appears in a situation you need to handle better.
Why do I use more fillers under pressure?
Pressure leaves less room for choosing words, shaping the next sentence, and monitoring delivery at the same time. People respond differently, so compare several attempts in the kind of situation you actually want to improve.
Do pauses make me sound confident?
Not automatically. A pause can provide planning time, but placement matters. A short pause between ideas may sound natural, while an interruption inside a phrase may reduce perceived fluency. Use silence to support clear phrasing, not as a trick that is supposed to manufacture confidence.
Should I eliminate “like” as well as “um”?
Only when “like” is the repeated habit you want to change. It can also function as a verb, preposition, quotation marker, or conversational signal. Mark the specific use and location before deciding that it is a filler.
Practise with a manual tally
The free speaking.app Filler Counter is a manual tally tool. Play your first recording and tap when you hear a filler, then repeat the process for the retry. It does not require a microphone, record your audio, or decide automatically what counts.
Keep the attempts separate. The useful result is knowing which pattern changed, where you paused, and whether the retry still sounded natural.
Sources
- Bortfeld, H., Leon, S. D., Bloom, J. E., Schober, M. F., and Brennan, S. E. (2001). Disfluency rates in conversation. Language and Speech, 44(2), 123-147.
- Arnold, J. E., Fagnano, M., and Tanenhaus, M. K. (2003). Disfluencies signal theee, um, new information. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 32, 25-36.
- Fox Tree, J. E. (2001). Listeners’ uses of um and uh in speech comprehension. Memory & Cognition, 29(2), 320-326.
- Corley, M., and Hartsuiker, R. J. (2011). Why um helps auditory word recognition. PLOS ONE, 6(5), e19792.
- Fraundorf, S. H., and Watson, D. G. (2011). The disfluent discourse. Journal of Memory and Language, 65(2), 161-175.
- Houghton, Z., Kato, M., Baese-Berk, M., and Vaughn, C. (2024). Task-dependent consequences of disfluency. Applied Psycholinguistics, 45(1), 64-80.
