TRANSCRIPT OF THE ABOVE VIDEO: Using Fillers and Thinking Words: English Communication Tools - Improve Your English Speaking Skills

Hi everyone, its Nicole and I'm answering another one of your questions.

One of my students wanted to know how to make her conversations a little bit more natural, like a native speaker, without having too much silence, I suppose, to think about what she wants to say, and I gave her some really good advice about using what we call natural fillers, or natural thinking words, and I thought I'd share them with you today because I'm really sure that these will help you as well, and they will not only give you time to think about what you want to say, but more importantly, they will make you sound like a natural native speaking communicator.

So, what I'm trying to say is by using what we call pausing or fillers, it makes you sound more natural and less rehearsed, you know, when native speakers speak, they're not perfect, you know, we all make mistakes, we all say, um, ahhh, we all pause, we all go back and correct ourselves if we've given the wrong information or made a mistake, you know, we all repeat ourselves, that's all part of communication in any language. I'm sure you do the same in your language as well.

But, to help, you use these fillers, these silence fillers, I suppose we could call them, not only to give you time to think, but to make you sound natural, like a native speaker. Sounds great. Doesn't it? Should we learn some of them?

Ok, so normally, to fill the silence, people usually make sound effects like ummm, ahhh, errr, mmm, aha, things like that, you know, and they're really what we call thinking sounds, they give them time to think about it, they give them time to yeah think about what's coming next I suppose, you know, they have no real value to the sentence, they don't mean anything, but they’re giving you this extra time, and they're making your conversation, I suppose, less rehearsed, a little bit more relaxed, a little bit more natural.

So, you know, it's ok to say errr, ummm, mmm, hmmm, aha, it's okay to do that, even if you're in an exam or something, you know, it's natural, it's normal, nobody will think that you're making a mistake, or that you're not speaking well enough, it's natural, you have these sound effects in your languages too, they might just be different sounds.

So, things like that. We also add little filler words, and these filler words are really what give you that time to think, so we say things like basically, or actually, or you know, you hear me say that all the time when I'm recording these learning videos, I always say so you know, and that's when I'm thinking, when I'm thinking what am I going to say next?

So things like so, or you know, or I mean, or ok, or like, people say like all the time, they're not comparing anything, it's just a filler word, or they might say well, that's a really common one, you know, well is used all the time, or you see, I guess, I suppose, right, things like that, you know, they’re filler words, they’re just extra little words that you add which make your speaking more real, more natural, more authentic.

You know, if you need a little bit more time you could say things like let me see, or let me think about it, or I'm not really sure just give me a minute, or I've never thought of that before, or if you need even more time you can combine them like hmm, ahh, so, well, you know, let me see, give me a minute, so you can use lots of them in combination and give yourself more and more and more time.

Look, there's absolutely nothing wrong with silence, you don't have to think that every second you need to make a sound, you need to say a word, it's ok to be silent, but announce it, you know, tell the listener oooh give me a minute, or let me think about that, so that they're aware why there is silence and so that they don't interrupt you.

Yeah, but anyway, thinking words, fillers for natural conversation and for thinking time. I thought I'd share them with you. I hope you really enjoy them.

If you have any questions, please ask, or better yet write some sentences with some thinking words, with some fillers in them, and I'll have a look. Anyway, have a great day. Thanks for listening. Bye.