Do you get stuck in your English conversations? Stop saying Umm… Uhh… and learn some English filler phrases to avoid Awkward Silence in a conversation. Speak more confidently and make your communication skills better with these handy filler phrases. Awkward silence or so called dead air in a conversation makes you sound less confident and someone who has poor communication skills. Using Filler phrases gives you time to think in English and frame your sentences correctly. This video would help you improve your communication skills and speak more confidently like a native speaker.
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Complete Video Transcript : –
Hi this is Ceema and welcome back to another session. Okay so I want to tell you that English speaking um well, you know, is like really simple, yeah! Okay what did I just do here if I took out the words um, well, you know, like I could have simply said, “English speaking is really simple.” Why? Because filler words like the um, like, you know they make you sound as if you are not confident, however let me tell you filler words at least some of them are not all that bad, yes. Some filler words can actually make you sound more confident, don’t believe me? Okay here’s the fact, when I was learning English there were some filler words that really helped me carry on my conversation without making any awkward pauses, without sounding non confident. So if you’re having a similar issue, don’t worry I’m here to help you speak confidently by showing you what filler phrases you can use so that when you’re talking you don’t sound like, you don’t know what to say, you don’t sound like there is nothing more you can say anymore, right? So let’s have a look at some filler phrases to help you speak seamlessly and confidently.
Okay so I’ve got two filler phrases for you well actually the first one is a filler word which is ‘basically’. Now how can I use that in a conversation to make me sound confident, without feeling a little silly because I don’t know what to say, okay let me tell you basically is a filler word which is used when you need to think about your answer or your statement. For example I can say, “I need to basically study better if I want to do well.” Or “I need basically a better study plan.” Okay so you actually wanted to say I need a better study plan but instead of pausing you simply said I need basically a study plan which actually gave you time to think about what you were going to say next, right? So if you want to feel more confident don’t pause just put that filler word in like basically.
Now you can also use ‘or… actually’ by saying, “Actually, I think that a better study plan is quite necessary.” So instead of waiting and thinking you can use the filler phrase ‘actually I think…’ followed by your actual idea which is actually I think that a better study plan is quite necessary.
A very common filler phrase you will hear is ‘or… something like that’. Well why do you use that? You use that in a sentence when you’re not sure about the exact amount, so let’s say I’m baking a cake, right? How many of us love to bake a cake? Right so, well I was baking a cake so I could say, “This cake recipe needs six eggs and probably four sticks of butter or something like that.” So what am i doing here? I’m not sure but I don’t want to be awkward about not being sure so I kind of instead of giving the wrong amount and being all worried about the wrong information, I will simply say this cake needs six eggs and four sticks of butter or something like that or I could say, “Well, we’re gonna take like around ten minutes or something like that.” Okay so that’s another filler phrase you can use when you’re feeling a little not sure of what you’re gonna say.
The next filler phrase you can use is ‘I mean…’ I mean have you heard people say that? It’s pretty common right? Well why do they say that? They say that when they are trying to clarify or emphasize what they are going to say okay so let’s say I am trying to hire a guy to work for me, I’m in an interview and I really think he’s a great guy but I don’t think it’s fit for the job so I’m emphasizing that look I think you’re good so I can say something like, “I mean… you are a great guy but I don’t think you’re right for this particular job.” Right? So instead of being all awkward and saying “Um, you are not good for this job.” I’m just saying, I mean, I mean you are a great guy but not good for this job. So this phrase is used to make sure that you correct also your mistakes while speaking so in case you’ve made a mistake which we all do while talking, you can also say, “I have 23, I mean 24 books on this topic.” Or “I wrote 25 articles, oh I mean 27 articles on this particular topic.”
Okay so how can you actually use filler words in your conversations? I believe it’s a matter of practice, when you were talking it’s very important to be very aware of how you can actually put this in the right context so I think it’s very interesting to know that native English speakers use filler phrases and filler words like a lot of times, however how are you going to be in a position to learn from them? Well I believe we’ve already mentioned this in my previous videos where we talk about the Cambly app, well this is an amazing app where you can get to speak to native English speakers 24/7 and they are from all parts of the world including the United Kingdom, the United States of America, Australia and so many other countries. So all you have to do is download the app, talk to them and you will get numerous ways of actually applying these filler phrases in your conversation and you will watch yourself get more confident just like I did whenever I have to say anything. So I’m gonna show you how we can go ahead and use the Cambly app. Okay so let’s first look at the Cambly app, you have to download this app onto your phone, well I already seem to have a Cambly account as you can already see, so all you have to do is log into the app there are various options like menu, reservations, lessons and tutors. Lessons talks about the different plans that we have and if you click on the tutors you will see a wide variety of tutors that are available and because they have this green mark next to them it means that they are available to speak right now and there’s a lot of them from every part of the world simply waiting to teach you and train you in fluent English. So let’s see who we can speak to right now I think Tom Fairbrother seems to be available so let us place a call and get in touch with him, just a few minutes and “Hi, How are you doing?” “Hi Tom.” “Hi nice to meet you, Michelle right?” “No my name is Ceema.” “Oh, Ceema, okay.” “That’s right and well I am a teacher myself I do teach the English language I do.” “Right you sound more British than I do.” “Well I’m not British but thank you, um well the reason I called is because I am trying to figure out a way where I can help my students speak more confidently.” “Mm-hm.” “What I’ve observed is that when they are trying to string a sentence together, they kind of have these pauses in between because they don’t know what to say, they’re kind of at a loss of words.” “Yeah, okay.” “So I believe that native English speakers like yourself, a lot of times use certain filler phrases in order to kind of you know cover the gaps in between a sentence.” “Yeah!” “So can you demonstrate a few and tell us how you can use them with a few examples maybe.” “Sure, yeah! I mean, I mean you have connecting phrases obviously which connect one idea to the next which is one thing but quite often people have phrases that they use it’s quite individual you know one person might, might be explaining something and quite often they’ll say well ‘it’s like this’ blah-blah-blah, ‘you know what I mean’ you know so phrase like you know what I mean, ‘do you get me’ or is, ‘you understand what I’m saying’ a little phrases like that people just throw them in there quite often or ‘kind of thing’ is another one you can say well it’s like this you know I got something like football the weekends I don’t like to play too often kind of thing and it’s these little phrases you know people just kind of throw in there.” Are you teaching younger people or adults?” “Well, all age groups really but I think this could help everybody, about the filler phrases I think the ones I’ve learned from you is saying things like ‘you know what I mean’ I think that shows that, that that’s the way of finding out whether they’ve understood what you’ve said, right?” “Like you’re saying something and you’re you end up saying you know what I mean?” “Or ‘you see’ or ‘it’s like that’ which means you’re kind of talking about something very approximate and value probably.” “Yeah, yeah when you’re having a longer conversation and you can you start talking and, and you suddenly realize you know you kind of the person might not understand what are you talking about, you know what I mean, you know what I mean?” “You understand what I mean?” “Well Tom that’s, that, that’s really helpful and I think I have a few tips that I can now use with my students and I’ll definitely share these with them and I look forward to seeing them a lot more confident than they are right now.” “Great, okay, well it sounds great, good luck with it all.” “Yeah thank you so much for your time, I’ll see you soon bye-bye.” “Nice to meet you” “See-ya, bye.”
Well that was great. I got to learn five new filler phrases in a matter of a few minutes, how? By simply talking to a native English speaker, right? And you can do that too by downloading this app that gives you access to a variety of plans which are specific to your language requirements. Now this app is not free however since you’re a subscriber with us, you can get a 30% discount on any plan that you choose. So hurry up because there’s a link in the description of this video to help you get signed up for your dose of English learning. Well that’s it for today, I hope you liked the session and I would like to know of your feedback on the Cambly app so let me know how it went and let me know whether these filler phrases really helped you to sound more content. I’ll be back with some more lessons until then this is me saying, ta-ta.
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