Knowing how to stop saying 'um' and 'uh' is one of the most searched questions about spoken English — and for good reason. Filler words are the background noise of speech: individually harmless, collectively wearing. In a job interview, a presentation, or even a difficult conversation, a stream of um, uh, er, and you know can make a capable person sound tentative. The good news is that these are habits, not personality traits, and habits respond to the right kind of practice.
This guide explains what filler words actually are, why you produce them, and — most usefully — what to do instead.
What Filler Words Are Doing in Your Speech
Before trying to remove something, it helps to understand why it is there.
When you speak spontaneously, your brain is composing sentences in real time. There is a lag — sometimes a fraction of a second, sometimes longer — between knowing what you want to say and finding the exact words. Filler words fill that gap. They are a signal to your listener: I am still speaking, do not interrupt me yet.
In informal conversation, this is barely noticeable. The problem is that most speakers are unaware of how often they use fillers, so the habit grows unchecked. By the time someone notices — usually because a colleague mentions it, or they hear a recording of themselves — it has become deeply automatic.
A second cause is anxiety. When the stakes feel higher, the processing gap widens, and fillers multiply. This is why someone who speaks fluently one-to-one might produce five ums per minute in front of a room.
Step One: Hear Yourself Clearly
You cannot change a sound you have never actually noticed. Most people are genuinely surprised when they first listen to a recording of their own speech. What felt smooth from the inside sounds cluttered from the outside.
The exercise is simple:
- Set a timer for ninety seconds.
- Speak aloud on any topic — describe your weekend, explain a work project, recount a film you have seen.
- Record it on your phone.
- Play it back and count every filler word: um, uh, er, like, you know, so, basically, right.
Write down the total. That number is your baseline. You will repeat this exercise regularly as you practise, watching the count come down.
Awareness alone reduces fillers. Once your brain has learned to hear them, it begins to catch them mid-speech — which is exactly the moment you need.
Step Two: Replace the Filler with Silence
This is the single most useful technique for reducing filler words, and the one most people resist.
When you feel the urge to say um, say nothing instead. A one-second pause. Two seconds at most. That is all.
Silence feels exposing from the inside. It does not sound that way to listeners. Consider these two versions of the same sentence:
"The main reason we missed the deadline was, um, er, basically the, uh, supplier issue."
"The main reason we missed the deadline was — [pause] — the supplier issue."
The second version sounds measured, not hesitant. The pause signals that you are choosing your words deliberately. Listeners almost always read silence as confidence rather than confusion.
Practise this at low stakes first: in casual conversation, on the phone, in a meeting where you know the material well. Replace one filler at a time with nothing. The silence will feel less strange within a few days.
Step Three: Slow Down Before You Start
Many fillers appear at the beginning of a sentence — Um, I think..., Uh, what I mean is... — because the speaker has started talking before their thought is ready. The mouth moves ahead of the mind.
The fix is to insert a beat of silence before you begin, rather than after. When someone asks you a question, resist the impulse to start speaking immediately. Give yourself one full second. Form the opening of your sentence mentally, then speak it.
This is particularly useful in interviews and presentations. A brief pause before answering reads as composure. It also means your first word is a real word, not a filler — and a strong opening shapes the whole of what follows.
Step Four: Work on Sentence Structure
Filler words often cluster at the junctions between clauses — the moments where a speaker is navigating from one idea to the next. If you find fillers appearing in the middle of your sentences rather than just at the start, the underlying issue may be structure.
When you are preparing to speak on a topic you care about — a presentation, a pitch, an important meeting — it is worth sketching the shape of what you want to say rather than scripting it word for word. Something like:
- Opening point
- One supporting example
- What follows from that
Knowing where you are going reduces the mid-sentence search for words. You do not need to memorise; you need a map.
If you tend to speak in very long sentences, try shortening them. A sentence that ends cleanly gives you a natural pause without needing a filler to hold the floor. Compare:
"So basically what we found was that, um, the data was showing, you know, a kind of trend towards, uh, longer sessions."
"The data showed a clear trend. Sessions were getting longer."
Shorter sentences. Cleaner stops. Fewer gaps to fill.
Step Five: Record, Review, Repeat
Awareness and technique are not enough on their own — you need feedback loops. Recording yourself, even briefly, is the most reliable way to get them.
Return to the ninety-second recording exercise every few days. Vary the topic so you are always speaking spontaneously rather than rehearsing a fixed script. Track your filler count. Most people see meaningful improvement within two to three weeks of consistent practice.
If you can, ask someone you trust to flag your fillers in real conversation. Not constantly — that becomes annoying — but as a periodic check. A simple signal, a raised finger or a light tap on the table, is enough.
You can also read aloud for five to ten minutes a day. Reading does not directly reduce conversational fillers, but it builds fluency, expands your feel for sentence rhythm, and makes you more comfortable with the sound of your own voice — all of which help. Find out more about how ummute approaches spoken fluency on our how it works page.
A Note on Accent and Background
Speakers of English as a second language sometimes worry that their fillers are more noticeable because of their accent. In practice, listeners are remarkably tolerant of accent variation. What grates is not an accent but the stop-start quality that heavy filler use creates — the sense that the speaker is not sure of themselves. Reducing fillers improves perceived fluency regardless of where you grew up speaking. The techniques here work the same way for native and non-native speakers alike.
Managing High-Stakes Moments
Job interviews, presentations, and difficult conversations are precisely when fillers spike, because anxiety shortens the processing window and speeds up the urge to fill silence.
A few things help specifically in these situations:
- Prepare your openings. Know the first sentence of your answer to the questions you are most likely to face. A clean start carries you forward.
- Breathe before you speak. A single breath resets the pace and gives your brain a moment to engage.
- Accept imperfection. One or two fillers in a ten-minute interview will not register. A self-conscious attempt to eliminate every single one often makes delivery more stilted, not less. The goal is ease, not performance.
You can read more about how spoken habits affect the way others hear you on our benefits page.
Stopping filler words is not about erasing your personality from your speech. It is about clearing the path between your thoughts and your listener. When the ums and uhs thin out, what is left is your actual voice — and that is worth hearing.