To stop saying um, replace it with a short silent pause. Record two minutes of yourself speaking, count every um and uh, and mark where each one lands, usually at sentence starts and transitions. Then practice pausing at those spots with your lips closed. Filler words are normal speech, so aim for fewer that listeners notice, not zero.
What are filler words?
Filler words are sounds and words that fill a pause in speech without adding meaning. Researchers separate two kinds: filled pauses such as um, uh and er, and discourse markers such as like, you know and I mean. Linguists call um and uh hesitation markers.
Common filler words fall into two groups:
Filled pauses: um, uh, er and ah.
Discourse markers: like, you know, I mean, so, well, basically, actually, right and okay.
The split matters because the two groups behave differently. Laserna, Seih and Pennebaker (2014) analyzed recorded speech from hundreds of participants and found that filled pauses and discourse markers formed separate factors. Discourse markers were more common in younger speakers and in more conscientious speakers. Um and uh showed no link to gender or personality.
This guide covers spoken fillers only and focuses on the habit most professionals want to cut: filler words like um and uh.
Toastmasters clubs count both groups. The club's Ah-Counter role logs filler sounds such as "ah" and "um" and overused words such as "and," "but," "so" and "you know."
Why do I say um so much?
Saying um signals that the next words are not ready yet. Speakers produce um and uh while they plan an idea or search for a word. Fillers cluster at the start of sentences, before hard or abstract words, and when the topic itself is difficult.
Valerie Fridland described the pattern on the Stanford Graduate School of Business podcast Think Fast, Talk Smart (episode 91, May 2023). Filled pauses, Fridland said, "occur mainly before we're doing really hard cognitive retrieval." Fridland named the usual spots: before "difficult words, more abstract words, less common or familiar words" and "at the very beginning of a sentence."
Topic difficulty raises the count too. Bortfeld and colleagues (2001) measured disfluency in conversation and found higher rates with abstract topics and when the speaker was directing a task. Both conditions add planning load.
Steven D. Cohen of Harvard Extension School calls the start of a statement and the transitions between points "filler word hot spots." Cohen traces the habit to a conditioned urge to answer instantly, before the thought is complete.
Saying um before every sentence points to a planning habit. The speaker starts talking before the first words are ready, and um fills the gap. Fillers are not a character flaw. Fillers are a timing signal, and timing can be trained.
What is the difference between um and uh?
Um and uh announce different delays: uh signals a short pause, and um signals a longer one. Clark and Fox Tree (2002) found this pattern in large collections of recorded speech. Speakers plan and produce both sounds the way they produce any other word.
Listeners treat the two sounds differently too. Fox Tree (2001) found that hearing uh helped listeners recognize the next word. Um had neither a benefit nor a cost. The study tested listeners in English and Dutch.
The difference has a practical use, because the location of a filler points to its cause. The list below is how a speech-language pathologist reads the pattern, not a study finding:
Fillers at sentence starts: the message is still being planned. The fix is to organize the point before speaking.
Fillers mid-phrase, just before a specific term: the word is being retrieved. The fix is to rehearse key terms aloud.
Ums at sentence starts often mean the speaker knows the point but has not put it in order yet. Our thought organization webinar and workbook teaches a structure for turning that knowledge into clear spoken points.
Is it bad to say um?
Saying um is not bad in moderation; frequency is the problem. In lab studies, listeners recognized words after uh, and remembered words after a filler, more easily. A few fillers help the listener. Frequent fillers draw attention away from the message.
Three lab findings support the listener benefit:
Memory. Corley, MacGregor and Donaldson (2007) found that words after "er" were integrated more easily and were more likely to be remembered.
Recall. Fraundorf and Watson (2011) found that fillers improved recall of a story, while coughs of the same length impaired recall. The benefit is not just extra time.
Expectation. Arnold and colleagues (2004) found that after "thee, uh," listeners expected the speaker to name something new.
Each finding comes from a lab task with recorded speech, not a live meeting or presentation. The studies show that fillers are not noise to the listener. The studies do not show that more fillers make a talk better.
Frequent fillers carry a social cost. Fridland put the cost plainly on the Stanford podcast: "people might perceive you badly when you use them." A few fillers help listeners follow. A steady stream of fillers pulls attention away from the point.
The goal, then, is fewer fillers, placed where a real pause belongs.
How many filler words is too many?
No study sets a safe number of filler words per minute. In 1,380 recorded telephone survey invitations, people agreed most often when interviewers were "moderately disfluent—neither robotic nor so disfluent as to appear incompetent." The useful target is fillers listeners stop noticing.
Conrad, Broome, Benkí, Kreuter, Groves, Vannette and McClain (2013) published the survey-invitation study in the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series A. Perfectly fluent, robotic-sounding delivery did not produce the most agreement. Moderate disfluency did. The study measured telephone survey requests, not presentations, so the finding sets a direction rather than a number.
Zero is the wrong target for a second reason. The lab studies in the previous section show that listeners use fillers to follow speech.
Per-minute filler targets circulate online. Those figures trace to vendors and unsourced blogs, not to published studies, so this guide prints none of them.
Measure your own baseline instead, and aim to cut it, not to hit an outside number. The tracking method at the end of this guide shows how.
How do I stop saying um?
Habit reversal is the method with published evidence for stopping um: awareness training plus a competing response. In a 2016 study, the method cut filled pauses in all six participants. You record yourself, learn to catch each um, then practice a silent pause instead.
Habit reversal is a behavior-change method with two parts. Awareness training teaches the speaker to notice each filler as it happens. A competing response is a replacement action that cannot happen at the same time as the habit.
Mancuso and Miltenberger (2016, Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis) tested a simplified version with six participants. Filled pauses, including uh, um, er, clicks and misused "like," dropped immediately in all six. The study abstract does not name the competing response the participants used.
Six steps turn the method into a weekly routine:
1. Record a two-minute talk on a work topic, such as a project update.
2. Count every um, uh, er and filler "like" in the recording.
3. Mark where each filler lands: sentence start, transition, or just before a specific word.
4. Choose one competing response: close your lips, pause and breathe in. Lauren Sergy recommends closing the mouth and breathing in through the nose.
5. Practice the response in low-stakes speech every day: voicemails, stand-ups and one-to-ones.
6. Re-record weekly, and add a short booster session when the count creeps back up.
Practice continues after the first drop. Spieler (2015), in a University of South Florida thesis, found that awareness training alone reduced fillers in all four students. Booster sessions were needed for further reduction, and most of the gains held in front of a small audience.
A silent pause needs air behind it, so the breath matters as much as the silence. Learning to breathe from the diaphragm is the next step after the pause itself.
What can I say instead of um?
Say nothing instead of um: a short silent pause holds your turn while you think. For predictable gaps, plan bridge phrases in advance, such as "The second reason is…" or "Here's what that means." Bridges work best at transitions, where fillers cluster.
Silence feels risky to many speakers. A consecutive interpreter on Reddit's r/TranslationStudies described the fear: "I feel like if [I] stay silent, I'll lose track of what I'm saying."
A planned bridge phrase answers that fear. The phrase gives the mind a rail to the next point, and the pause in front of the phrase buys planning time.
Four bridge phrases cover the most common gaps (illustrative wording, not scripts):
"The short answer is…" for opening a reply to a question.
"That leads to the next point…" for moving between sections.
"Here's an example…" for shifting from an idea to a story.
"The number to watch is…" for introducing data.
Pauses also slow a rushed pace, which gives planning time back to the speaker. The guide on how to stop rushing when you speak covers pace drills for presentations.
How do I stop saying um when presenting?
To stop saying um when presenting, rehearse from key points instead of a script and practice every transition aloud until it is automatic. Fillers cluster at the start of statements and between ideas. Pause before each new point and slide change, and record one run-through.
The habit-reversal method above works in any setting. This section and the three after it apply the method to presentations, interviews and single words, then cover the cases where um is not just a habit.
Three prep moves target the presentation hot spots:
Write the first sentence of each section word for word, and keep the rest as key points.
Rehearse every transition aloud, including the line that leads into each slide.
Count the fillers in a recorded run-through, then run the talk again.
Count by ear. Duarte notes that many transcription services cut out filler words automatically, so a clean transcript can hide a filler-heavy talk.
Presenters who want an outside count can work with a coach. Our public speaking coaching that tracks filler words measures fillers, pauses and message structure across sessions.
How do I stop saying um in an interview?
To stop saying um in an interview, prepare the opening sentence of your answers to likely questions, then pause before you speak. Fillers cluster at the start of a statement, so a ready first sentence covers the biggest hot spot. An occasional um is normal.
Interview fillers follow the same planning pattern as any other speech. The start of an answer carries the least preparation, which makes the first sentence the priority.
Three moves keep interview answers clean:
Prepare opening lines for five common questions, such as "Tell me about yourself" and "Why this role?"
Buy time with a restatement of the question: "The project I'd pick is…"
Stop once the answer is complete, instead of trailing off with "so, yeah."
Saying um occasionally in an interview is okay. Filled pauses are normal speech, and the Conrad survey data favored moderate disfluency over robotic delivery. That study measured survey calls, not hiring decisions, so treat the finding as a general signal about listeners.
Is "so" a filler word?
"So" is a filler word only when it adds no meaning. "So, our plan is ready" uses it as filler. "The deadline moved, so we cut scope" uses it to show a result. To test, delete the word: a filler leaves the meaning unchanged.
Grammarly's test is to try the sentence without the filler word and see whether the meaning changes. Applied to two more common cases, the test gives these results (our reading, not Grammarly's list):
- "Because" is rarely a filler, since the word gives a reason.
- "Like" is a filler in "It was, like, fine" and not a filler in "a tool like this."
Fillers can be whole phrases too. Will Neuman argues in Toastmaster magazine (June 2023) that phrases such as "at this time" and "I'll be honest with you" also work as fillers.
Hedges are a different habit. Words such as "just," "I think" and "sorry" soften a point rather than fill a pause. The fix for hedges is assertive replacements for hedging words, not a silent pause.
When is saying um a sign of something else?
Saying um is usually a typical disfluency, not a disorder. ASHA lists interjections like um and uh as typical. Some people who stutter use fillers to postpone or avoid a stuttered word, and many fillers with fast, irregular speech can point to cluttering.
ASHA, the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, separates the two patterns in its Practice Portal:
Typical disfluency: interjections such as um and uh, whole-word or phrase repetitions, and revisions.
Stuttering: sound or syllable repetitions, prolongations and blocks, often with physical tension.
ASHA's page on stuttering, cluttering and fluency lists fillers such as "like," "um," "uh" and "you know" among avoidance behaviors. Some people who stutter use these fillers to get past a word, which can hide the stutter from listeners. ASHA, citing St. Louis and Schulte (2011), describes cluttering as a rapid or irregular rate plus "an excessive number of nonstuttering-like disfluencies."
A pause drill is not designed for a speaker who uses um to get past a stuttered word. A speech-language pathologist can tell these patterns apart, so an evaluation comes before any filler-count drill.
How do you track filler words over time?
Track filler words by counting them in the same two-minute speaking task each week. Divide the count by the minutes spoken for a per-minute rate, and note where each filler falls. Awareness-training research found booster sessions were needed to keep reducing fillers.
A weekly log needs four entries:
Task: the same prompt each week, such as a two-minute project update.
Count: every um, uh, er and filler "like" heard on playback.
Rate: the count divided by the minutes spoken.
Location: sentence start, transition, or just before a specific word.
Count by ear, not from auto-captions, because automatic transcripts often drop fillers. Private recordings come first. Toastmaster magazine notes that live reminders such as bells can make some speakers more nervous.
Sydney Parriott, MA, CCC-SLP, MBA, is a licensed corporate speech-language pathologist. Delivery is Pillar 5 of The Resonant Communication Method™, the framework she uses in coaching. Our communication analysis that counts filler words applies the same measurement to a recording, alongside speech rate and pauses.
Filler Words FAQs
Is saying um a sign of nervousness?
Not always. Schachter and colleagues (1991) found humanities lecturers used more fillers than natural scientists, yet the gap disappeared when the lecturers spoke on a common topic. Subject matter and word choice drove the fillers. Laserna and colleagues (2014) found um and uh unrelated to personality.
Do men or women say um more?
Neither, for um and uh. Laserna, Seih and Pennebaker (2014) found filled pauses unrelated to gender. Discourse markers such as "like" and "you know" were more common in women only among teens and students, and the gap disappeared from age 23 up.
Is um becoming more common than uh?
Yes. Wieling and colleagues (2016) found um rising relative to uh across English, Dutch, German, Norwegian, Danish and Faroese. Women and more educated speakers led the change, which suggests um is a normal, spreading word rather than a sign of poor speaking.
Does having someone count your ums help?
Partly. Toastmasters clubs assign an Ah-Counter to log filler sounds, but the evidence is for self-monitoring. Awareness training, which means noticing each filler, cut fillers in all four students in one study (Spieler, 2015). Toastmaster magazine notes bells and reminders can make some speakers more nervous.
Sources
Clark, H. H., and Fox Tree, J. E. (2002). Using uh and um in spontaneous speaking. Cognition, 84(1), 73–111. doi.org/10.1016/S0010-0277(02)00017-3
Fox Tree, J. E. (2001). Listeners' uses of um and uh in speech comprehension. Memory & Cognition, 29(2), 320–326. doi.org/10.3758/BF03194926
Corley, M., MacGregor, L. J., and Donaldson, D. I. (2007). It's the way that you, er, say it: Hesitations in speech affect language comprehension. Cognition, 105(3), 658–668. doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2006.10.010
Fraundorf, S. H., and Watson, D. G. (2011). The disfluent discourse: Effects of filled pauses on recall. Journal of Memory and Language, 65(2), 161–175. doi.org/10.1016/j.jml.2011.03.004
Arnold, J. E., Tanenhaus, M. K., Altmann, R. J., and Fagnano, M. (2004). The old and thee, uh, new: Disfluency and reference resolution. Psychological Science, 15(9), 578–582. doi.org/10.1111/j.0956-7976.2004.00723.x
Bortfeld, H., Leon, S. D., Bloom, J. E., Schober, M. F., and Brennan, S. E. (2001). Disfluency rates in conversation: Effects of age, relationship, topic, role, and gender. Language and Speech, 44(2), 123–147. doi.org/10.1177/00238309010440020101
Schachter, S., Christenfeld, N., Ravina, B., and Bilous, F. (1991). Speech disfluency and the structure of knowledge. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 60(3), 362–367. doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.60.3.362
Laserna, C. M., Seih, Y.-T., and Pennebaker, J. W. (2014). Um . . . who like says you know: Filler word use as a function of age, gender, and personality. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 33(3), 328–338. doi.org/10.1177/0261927X14526993
Wieling, M., Grieve, J., Bouma, G., Fruehwald, J., Coleman, J., and Liberman, M. (2016). Variation and change in the use of hesitation markers in Germanic languages. Language Dynamics and Change, 6(2), 199–234. doi.org/10.1163/22105832-00602001
Conrad, F. G., Broome, J. S., Benkí, J. R., Kreuter, F., Groves, R. M., Vannette, D., and McClain, C. (2013). Interviewer speech and the success of survey invitations. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series A, 176(1), 191–210. doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-985X.2012.01064.x
Mancuso, C., and Miltenberger, R. G. (2016). Using habit reversal to decrease filled pauses in public speaking. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 49(1), 188–192. doi.org/10.1002/jaba.267
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American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. Characteristics of typical disfluency and stuttering (Practice Portal). asha.org/practice-portal/clinical-topics/fluency-disorders/characteristics-of-typical-disfluency-and-stuttering/
American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. Stuttering, cluttering, and fluency (Practice Portal). asha.org/practice-portal/clinical-topics/fluency-disorders/
Stanford Graduate School of Business (2023). "Um, Like, So": How Filler Words Can Be Effective in Communication. Think Fast, Talk Smart, episode 91, with Matt Abrahams and Valerie Fridland. gsb.stanford.edu/insights/um-so-how-filler-words-can-be-effective-communication
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Grammarly. What Are Filler Words, and How Do You Cut Them? grammarly.com/blog/grammar/how-we-use-filler-words/
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