How to Stop Saying "Like" (Without Sounding Stiff)

Most advice on filler words is about "um" and "uh". If those are your problem, we have a separate guide for them. This one is about the word that is still there after the ums have gone: "like".

"Like" is harder to get rid of for a simple reason. It is an ordinary word you use correctly dozens of times a day ("I like this song", "it looks like rain"), so there is no stray sound to catch. The one you want to lose is the one that slips in between the real words: "I was, like, going to the shop, and it was, like, really far."

The fix starts with working out which "like" you are dealing with, because the word does four different jobs and each one has a different cure.

The four jobs "like" does

1. Stalling

"So the meeting was, like, about the budget." Here the word is buying you a moment to think. It does the same job as "um", and the fix is the same: a short silence. A one second pause feels long to you and usually sounds normal to the person listening.

2. Guessing at a number or a size

"There were, like, twenty people." The word means "roughly". Say "about twenty" or "around twenty", or just say "twenty". If you really do not know, "I can't remember exactly, maybe twenty" is more honest than a floating "like".

3. Softening

"It was like so good." "She's like really tall." Delete it. "It was so good" is the same sentence with nothing missing.

4. Quoting

"And he was like, 'I'm not paying for that.'" This is the quoting "like", and in casual conversation it does something no other word does as quickly. Keep it with friends. In an interview or a presentation, "he said" or "he told me" fits better.

Everything else is the ordinary word, and it stays. Do not try to cut "I like it", "it looks like" or "someone like you". If you try to remove every "like" from your speech, you will start tripping over sentences that need it, and the stumble is worse than the word.

Step one: count for two minutes

You cannot fix a habit you cannot see. Record yourself for two minutes on something easy: last weekend, how you get to work, a film you watched. Do not prepare. Play it back with a pen and paper and make a mark every time "like" is doing job 1, 2 or 3. If you are practising for a formal setting, mark job 4 as well. Divide the marks by two and you have your count a minute.

For a rough idea of where you stand: across about 900 short practice speeches in our practice data, the typical speaker's overall filler count was about 3.5 a minute, and about one speaker in four was above 7.7 a minute. That count includes "like", "so" and "basically" when they are used as fillers, as well as um, uh and you know. If you are at three or four, you are typical. Write your number down, because you will want it again in two weeks.

Six drills you can do alone

1. The silent beat

When you feel a "like" coming, close your mouth, breathe in through your nose and count one. Then carry on. Try it first at the places where a comma would go in writing, because that is where most stalling "likes" sit.

2. The two take retell

Talk for 30 seconds about anything. Record it. Then say exactly the same thing again with no "like" at all and record that too. Listen to both. The second take is usually shorter, and that is the point: it shows you that the word was not carrying anything.

3. Numbers out loud

For one day, whenever you give a quantity, say a number or say "about". "Like ten minutes" becomes "about ten minutes". This fixes job 2 almost on its own, because the habit is just a missing word.

4. Slow down the first few words

If your "like" tends to turn up as you start a new thought, say the first three or four words of each sentence a little slower than feels natural. That gives your brain the half second it was trying to steal with the filler.

5. The start over game

Pick a question you have not prepared for (our list of 50 impromptu topics will do) and talk for 60 seconds. Every time a filler "like" gets out, start that sentence again from the top. Not the whole answer, just the sentence. It is annoying on purpose, and it works because the cost arrives immediately instead of in a recording you may never replay.

6. One friend, one signal

Ask someone you talk to every day to give a small agreed signal, such as touching their ear, when you use a filler "like". Tell them it is for one week only. People notice their own filler words much faster once someone else is noticing them too.

The other fillers, quickly

• "You know", "right?" and "I mean": these check that the listener is still with you. Pause and let them react, or finish the thought without checking.
• "So" at the start of an answer: a stall. Open with your point instead.
• "Basically", "literally" and "actually": delete the word and read the sentence again. If nothing changed, it was a filler.
• "Kind of" and "sort of": keep them when you really are unsure. Drop them when you are only stalling.

A two week plan

1. Days 1 and 2: the two minute baseline. Count, write the number down, change nothing.
2. Days 3 to 7: one drill a day, two minutes each: silent beat, two take retell, numbers, slow start, start over.
3. Days 8 to 13: one 60 second answer a day to a question you have not seen. Record it and tally the fillers (the filler word counter does it from a transcript).
4. Day 14: repeat the baseline on a similar topic and compare the two counts.

Expect the count to fall faster in practice than in real conversation. In a drill you are watching for the word. In a meeting your attention is on what you are saying, and the old habit comes back. That gap closes with repetition, not with willpower, so keep the daily 60 seconds going after the two weeks are up.

When "like" is fine

In relaxed conversation a few of them are normal, and the goal is not zero. The goal is that you choose the word instead of it choosing you. In an interview, a presentation or a speech, aim for filler "likes" that are rare enough that nobody notices them.

Practising with an app

You can do everything above with a phone recorder and a notepad, and for the first two minutes you should. The slow part is the counting. It is tedious, and it is easy to go easy on yourself when you are tired. RankedSpeak, the iPhone app we make, does that part. You record an answer to a prompt, and a few seconds later the report shows your filler words, with "like", "so" and "basically" judged in context instead of counted everywhere, along with your pace and pauses, all measured from a word by word transcript. The trajectory card keeps your filler count across your recent sessions, so you can see whether it is really falling.

One daily prompt a day is free, with its score. Everything comes back as text on your screen. Nothing speaks to you, and there is no live listener. If you would rather compare a few tools before picking one, we list the options, including ones that are not ours, in best apps to reduce filler words.

If recording yourself is new to you, this short piece on why it works explains what to listen for the first time.