How Speaking Coach gives feedback on your speaking, and its limits
Speaking Coach measures how you sounded: your pace in words per minute, your filler words, long pauses or freezes, and how quickly you started. It then gives tips that quote something you actually said, with a better way to say it, and it never rates your accent or your personality. The free tools on these pages only count and time your speech in your browser; they are not AI feedback.
Three places you can get feedback
Speaking Coach feedback comes in three forms, and they do different jobs. Knowing which one you are using tells you how much to trust each number.
| Where | What you do | What you get | Languages | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Phone app (iPhone and Android) | Practice a conversation with an AI voice partner who plays the other side | Measures of how you sounded, what to keep, quoted tips, and a retry of one moment | 20 | Subscription; see the App Store or Google Play for the price in your country |
| Speaking Coach in ChatGPT | Record or upload your own voice | Measured pace, filler words and pauses, feedback that quotes your words, one change to try | English | Free, two reviews per network connection per day |
| Free tools on these pages | Speak into your browser or paste text | Counts and timings: words per minute, filler words, long pauses, your transcript | The page's language | Free |
The first two include AI feedback. The browser tools do not: they count and time, and the judgement is yours.
What the app measures
After each practice session, the app shows how you sounded on four things:
- Pace, in words per minute. Conversational English is commonly cited at about 120–160 words per minute, and presentations often land around 130–150. Treat those as typical ranges, not targets you must hit.
- Filler words, such as "um", "uh", "like" and "you know".
- Long pauses or freezes, the moments where you stopped mid-thought.
- How quickly you started, how long you took to begin speaking.
These are numbers about delivery. They tell you nothing on their own about whether your answer was good, and a slow, pause-heavy answer can still be the right one.
Tips that quote you: "You said … / Try …"
Generic advice like "be more concise" is easy to agree with and hard to act on. So each tip starts from a line you actually said, then offers a version to try.
Example of the format (made up for this page):
You said: "So, um, basically I kind of led the project, I guess." Try: "I led the project, a team of four, from planning to launch."
The feedback also names what to keep, so you don't drop the parts that worked while fixing the rest.
Retry this moment
Feedback only helps if you use it straight away. Retry this moment puts you back in the same spot for 90 seconds, so you can say it again with the change, then see what changed. One focused retry usually teaches more than replaying the whole session.
What Speaking Coach never judges
- Your accent. Having an accent is not a speaking problem, and the app never rates it.
- Your personality. Being quiet, warm or reserved is not a fault to fix. The feedback points to things you can change, like a filler you repeat or an answer that took a long time to start.
- Pronunciation or medical issues in the ChatGPT app: it makes no accent, pronunciation, personality or medical assessment. If you are worried about a stammer, a voice problem or a speech disorder, talk to a qualified professional.
Limits you should know about
No tool hears you perfectly. These are the ones that matter most:
| Limit | What it means for you |
|---|---|
| Speech recognition tidies up speech | Browser speech recognition is built to produce clean text, so it often drops "um" and "uh". A low filler count in the browser tools is a good sign, not proof. |
| Some fillers are real words | "I like the plan" is not a filler. Read the highlighted transcript, not just the number. |
| Misheard words carry through | If a word is transcribed wrongly, a quoted tip can carry that error. If a quote doesn't match what you said, it was probably misheard. |
| A pause is not always a mistake | A deliberate pause before a key point sounds controlled. Use the pause count to find moments to listen back to, not as a score. |
| Numbers don't judge content | Pace and fillers say nothing about whether your example was relevant or your point was clear. That needs a listener, human or AI. |
The browser tools also depend on your browser. Chrome and Edge use Google's or Microsoft's speech service, and Safari uses Apple's. Speaking Coach's servers receive nothing from these tools. Where a browser has no speech recognition, you can paste text instead.
How these pages are written and checked
The guides and tools on these pages follow the same rules as the feedback: say what is true, and show the limits.
- One question per page. Each page answers one thing people actually ask, and the answer comes first.
- No invented facts. We don't make up statistics, studies, surveys, reviews or testimonials. When a page uses an outside fact, it lists the source we opened.
- Examples are labelled. Example answers and speeches show a structure. They are made up, not real people's words.
- Claims about Speaking Coach come from one checked list. We don't publish user numbers, ratings or success rates.
- Competitors are checked at the source. Comparison pages state only what the other tool's own site or store page showed, with the month we checked, and say where the other tool is the better pick.
- Dated. Every page shows when it was last updated, under the byline of the Speaking Coach team at Sodhera Intelligence.
If you spot something wrong, the About page says how to reach us.
Questions people ask
Do the free tools send my voice to Speaking Coach?
No. Your browser's own speech service turns speech into text, and Speaking Coach's servers receive nothing. In the phone app, your CV and documents stay on your phone; only their text goes to the AI partner during interview sessions.
Why did the filler counter miss my ums?
Speech recognition usually leaves hesitation sounds out of the transcript. Words like "like" and "you know" are caught more reliably, so your real count is often higher than the tool shows.
Will Speaking Coach tell me to change my accent?
No. It never rates your accent. It focuses on pace, fillers, pauses, how quickly you start and the words you chose.
What is a good speaking pace?
Conversational English is commonly cited at about 120–160 words per minute. The pace checker shows yours. What matters more is whether a listener can follow you without asking you to repeat yourself.
Is the feedback in the free tools AI feedback?
No. The free tools count words, fillers and pauses and show your transcript. Quoted tips and a partner who talks back are in the ChatGPT app (English, free, limited) and the phone app (20 languages, subscription).