How to stop saying um and uh in your videos

By the Telepromptia team · Updated November 3, 2026 · 6 min read

Filler words are rarely a speaking problem. They are a planning problem: your mouth is moving while your brain is still choosing the next word. That is why the same person can sound fluent in a chat and stumble through a video. A script gives you the words, but you also need silence you have planned, a rehearsal that happened out loud and takes short enough that one slip costs seconds. This guide walks through each of those.

Key takeaways

• Fillers fill silence you did not plan. Plan the silence, and most of them disappear.
• Write sentences that fit in one breath, and write the word you are likely to hesitate on in the way you say it.
• Rehearse out loud, three times, doing something different in each pass.
• Plan your pauses, mark them in the editor and rehearse them. The prompter hides the marks.
• Record in short takes and retake only the sentence that has the slip.
• Telepromptia does not remove filler words from the audio. The fix is in the script and in how you record.

Why fillers happen

There are three common causes. You are searching for a word, you are deciding what to say next, or silence feels uncomfortable. Silence often feels longer to the speaker than to the listener, so you fill it. Researchers describe "um" and "uh" as signals that a delay is coming, and listeners can use them. On a scripted video, though, a string of fillers usually reads as hesitation, while a short planned pause often sounds more controlled.

A script removes the first two causes. The third is a habit, and a habit changes when you practice the pause on purpose.

Count them first

Record one minute of yourself explaining something without a script. Play it back and count the fillers: um, uh, like, you know, so, right, basically. Write the number down. After a week of the steps below, record another minute and count again. A number gives you something to improve, and it keeps you from chasing perfection. Natural speech has a few fillers, and you only need to remove the ones that distract.

Fix 1: Write for speaking

• Keep sentences short. If you run out of breath, the sentence is too long. Split it.
• Use plain words. A word you rarely say is a word you will hesitate on.
• Spell hard names as you say them. Write numbers and names in the form you will actually speak.
• Say the link between ideas. "Next." "The second reason is cost." A signpost saves you from a search for a transition.
• Read the draft aloud. Wherever you stumble, rewrite the sentence instead of practicing the stumble.

Our guide to reading a script to camera naturally goes further into the spoken style.

Fix 2: Rehearse out loud in three passes

Reading silently feels fluent because your eyes move faster than your mouth. Out loud is the only test that counts. Do three passes, each one with a job.

Pass 1: a cold read with a timer

Read the whole script at your normal pace, without performing. Mark every spot where you stumble or reach for a filler. Rewrite those sentences, then read them again.

Pass 2: run it on the prompter

Open the script in Telepromptia's Rehearsal view, which shows the prompter without opening the camera, and run it at your planned speed. Do it twice. The scrolling text teaches you the rhythm of the script, and any place where the text moves too fast for you will show up as a stumble. Change the speed, not your voice.

Pass 3: the edges from memory

Fillers cluster at openings and transitions. Say your first two sentences and your last two without looking, three times each. If you can open cleanly, the rest follows.

Fix 3: Put the pauses in the script

In Telepromptia's editor you can type // where you want a pause. The advanced formatting in Pro can also split your text into short phrases, one per line, with a // pause marker after each sentence, and you can undo it if you do not like the result. Note that the prompter hides // and asterisks, so you will not see them while you read. They are notes for the editor and for your rehearsal, not cues on screen.

Treat each marker as an instruction to yourself: stop, breathe, count one in your head, then say the next phrase. The silence takes the place of the "um". Use it at the end of each thought, before a number and before the line you want people to remember. Because the marker is hidden, rehearse the pauses until you hit them without a cue. The EyeLock reading layouts show your script a few short phrases at a time, which also makes the phrase breaks easier to see.

Fix 4: Choose a speed you can keep

If the text scrolls too fast, you rush, trip and fill the gaps. If it is too slow, you wait and fill that gap too. Measure your pace and set the speed slightly below it, as described in the speed and font size guide. With Pro, FlowSync scrolls as you speak and waits when you pause, so a planned pause does not make the text run away. Our voice-activated teleprompter guide explains how that works.

Fix 5: Record in short takes

A long take makes every slip expensive, and the fear of a slip makes more of them. Record one paragraph at a time, with a breath between takes. When a filler slips out, stop, pause and say the sentence again from its start. You can cut the bad part later and keep the energy. The guide to recording a long script in takes shows how to split a script.

If one sentence is bad, retake only that sentence. In Telepromptia, Pause on any plan drops the unfinished sentence and resumes from its first word, and with Pro MagicRetake re-records a single sentence, even one you have already finished. OneTake Studio then puts your takes together in script order. With Pro it can also find long pauses and shorten them, so a gap you left to think does not stay in the final video. It does not remove the sound of an "um" inside a sentence, which is why the retake matters. See fixing a mistake without re-recording for the details.

A one-week plan

What not to do

• Do not aim for zero. A video with no fillers and no breath sounds robotic. Cut the ones that distract.
• Do not memorize word for word. A forgotten word then causes a freeze that is worse than an "um".
• Do not apologize or comment on a slip. Pause, restart the sentence and move on.
• Do not speed up to escape the silence. Fast speech has its own fillers.

Where Telepromptia fits

The free plan includes the scrolling teleprompter, recording up to three minutes per session and exports with no watermark. Pro adds FlowSync, MagicRetake sentence retakes, pause shortening, captions and advanced formatting. Scripts and videos stay on your device. See pricing for the full comparison.