Skip to content
← All articles

How to Stop Saying Um, by Measuring It First

Pause instead of filling, slow down where you plan, and count your ums from the talking you already do, in English and in Spanish.

By Nelson, maker of Aurator

To stop saying um, first count how often you say it, then practise one thing. Where an um wants to come, close your mouth and pause for one beat instead. Slow down at the moments you are working out what to say next, and count again a week later, so you know it is really changing.

The usual advice is to record yourself and count your ums. It is good advice, but it is tedious, so it is easy to skip. So I will show you how to count by hand once, how to count from the talking you already do, and what to practise in between. There is a short part for Spanish speakers too.

Why do we say um at all

In 2002, Herbert Clark at Stanford and Jean Fox Tree at the University of California, Santa Cruz, studied uh and um across several large collections of recorded, unscripted speech. Their proposal is that we use uh and um to announce a delay, uh for a short one and um for a longer one. With that signal we tell the listener we are searching for a word, deciding what to say next, or that we want to keep our turn. They argue that uh and um are real English words, and that we plan them like any other word.

A year earlier, Fox Tree tested what listeners do with them. In two studies, in English and in Dutch, hearing uh helped people recognise the words that came next, and hearing um neither helped nor hurt.

So the goal is not zero. An um now and then is part of normal speech. The trouble starts when they pile up, and the person listening hears the hesitation more than the point.

In 2001, Heather Bortfeld and her colleagues measured disfluencies, which include fillers, repeated words and restarts, in conversations between pairs of people. The rates were higher when a speaker was the one describing pictures for the other person to match, and when the pictures were abstract shapes rather than photos of children. Their conclusion is that disfluencies go up when planning gets harder. So it makes sense to look for your ums where you are planning hardest.

Step one, measure before you change anything

It is hard to hear your own fillers while you talk, so get a number.

  1. Record two minutes of yourself explaining something real, with no script. What you worked on today, or how to get to your house.
  2. Get the words down. Type them out as you listen, or use a transcript, and check it against the recording, since a transcript may not write down every um.
  3. Count every filler. Um and uh, and also you know, I mean and like wherever they are not doing a job in the sentence.
  4. Count all the words.
  5. Divide the fillers by the words and multiply by 100. That is your fillers per 100 words.
  6. Write down the filler that came up most. That is the one to work on first.

For example, 14 fillers in 280 words is 14 divided by 280, times 100, which is 5 fillers per 100 words.

A long talk has more room for ums than a short one, so per 100 words is what lets you compare one week with the next. Measure again a week later, with the same kind of talk.

How to count from the talking you already do

Recording yourself on purpose is easy to do once and then stop. There is a second way. I make Aurator, so please read this knowing that.

As I kept using Aurator, I noticed that every dictation was also a record of how I speak, the filler words I lean on included. If you dictate on a Mac, you make that record many times a day. Aurator's cleanup takes sounds such as um and uh out of the text it pastes, so the reader never sees them. But the coach still counts them, from what you actually said.

So after a paste you see a short line, such as "3 fillers cut, 3 words tighter." And on the Coach page, Fluency counts your fillers and the words you said twice in a row, like "the the", per 100 words you spoke. The app shows you the formula. You start at 100, and lose 10 points for every filler per 100 words and 6 for every repeated word per 100 words.

In numbers, 4 fillers per 100 words and no repeats gives a Fluency of 60, which the coach calls Developing. To reach Strong, which starts at 75, you need 2.5 fillers per 100 words or fewer. When Fluency is below Strong and makes your list of what to focus on next, the coach also names the filler you lean on most, and how many times it came up.

Here is what it counts.

FillerLanguageWhen the coach counts it
umEnglishWherever it appears
uh, erm, hmm, ehEnglish and SpanishWherever it appears
you know, I mean, likeEnglishOnly when a pause sets it apart
este, puesSpanishOnly when a pause sets it apart
o seaSpanishWherever it appears

That pause rule matters. "I like it" is ordinary speech, so it is never counted. "It was, like, really good" is. Mhm is never counted either, because it means yes.

There are limits, and I want to be plain about them. The coach can only count what the speech model writes down, so an um that never reaches the text is not counted. It reads your words and their timing, never your recordings, and it runs on your Mac. Its read is called preliminary until you have twenty longer dictations, of 25 words or more. And dictating an email at your desk is calmer than answering a hard question in an interview, so treat it as your everyday baseline, not a score for the big moments.

What to practise instead of saying um

  1. Pause instead of filling. When you feel an um coming, close your mouth for one beat. The delay is the same. You just do not announce it. Aurator's coach calls this exercise Pause instead of um.
  2. Slow down where you plan. The start of an answer and the move to a new point are planning moments. Take a breath there.
  3. Know your first sentence. Before a call or a meeting, decide the first sentence you will say. Once it is out, you are already moving.
  4. Finish the sentence. Watch for "and um", where one thought runs into the next. End with a full stop, pause, and start fresh.
  5. Work on one filler at a time. Take the one you counted most, and leave the rest for later.
  6. Practise in short rounds. Say something once, note the fillers, then say it again. In Aurator's lesson "Pause instead of um" you answer a question out loud, and if you miss the goal it asks a new one. It counts your fillers per 100 words, so a shorter answer does not pass for a better one.

Saying um in interviews and presentations

In an interview, let the question finish, then pause before you answer. That short silence gives you time to plan, without an um to fill it. Start your answer with the words of the question. If they ask about a project you are proud of, begin with "The project I am most proud of is". And prepare first sentences for the questions you expect.

When you present, mark the moments between slides, because those are planning moments. Rehearse out loud, not in your head, and record one rehearsal to count your fillers per 100 words.

And like. When like is only a filler, as in "it was, like, really good", drop it, or let the pause stand on its own.

Filler words in Spanish

Spanish is my first language and English my second, so this part matters to me. Many Spanish fillers are easy to miss, because they are also ordinary words. Este means this. Pues means well, or so. O sea means I mean, or that is. And then there is eh.

"Este libro es bueno" has no filler. "Quiero, este, el libro" has one. Aurator counts este and pues only when a pause sets them apart, and o sea wherever it appears. Its cleanup takes este, pues, eh and o sea out of what you paste only where a pause sets them apart, so "Pues, no voy" becomes "No voy", and "este año" stays as it is.

If you speak both languages, measure both, because your fillers in one may not be your fillers in the other. Aurator counts each dictation by the rules of its own language. I wrote more about dictating in two languages in What "Automatic Language" Actually Means in a Dictation App.

Where to start today

Record two minutes today and work out your fillers per 100 words. Pick your top filler. Practise the one beat pause for a week, then measure again. You need nothing more than a recording and a pencil.

If you dictate on a Mac and would like the counting done for you, from the talking you already do, that is what Aurator's coach is for. I wrote about why your everyday words are worth keeping in The Power of Your Voice.

You can download Aurator here. Aurator is at tryaurator.app. Seven days free, with every feature, then US$29 once, with a full refund within 30 days if it is not for you.

Sources, all checked on 7 October 2026