How to get a word in during English conversations (you have 200 milliseconds)

Monday meeting, five people in the room. You have something useful to say about the deadline. You wait for Mark to finish, open your mouth… and Sarah is already talking. An hour later you haven't said a word, and someone else pitches your idea.

In English, as in every language researchers have measured, the gap between turns lasts about 200 milliseconds, and planning even one word takes more than 600. Native speakers don't wait for silence: they plan their reply while the other person is still talking. In a second language you either arrive late or arrive on time at a steep mental cost. The fix isn't waiting for a pause that never comes. It's a few memorized openers, like "Sorry to interrupt, but…" or "Can I just add something?", that win you the floor while the rest of your sentence is still loading.

The gap closes before you're ready#

Turn timing is nearly universal. Tanya Stivers, Stephen C. Levinson, and nine colleagues recorded conversations in ten languages, and in their 2009 PNAS study the average response came 208 milliseconds after the other person stopped. Every language landed within about 250 ms of that average. The paper concludes: "all of the languages tested provide clear evidence for a general avoidance of overlapping talk and a minimization of silence between conversational turns."

Building a reply takes far longer. Levinson and Francisco Torreira sum it up in a 2015 review in Frontiers in Psychology: gaps of about 200 ms against production latencies of over 600 ms. The math only works if the reply gets planned while the other person is still speaking.

Levinson describes that double job from the inside on the Because Language podcast: "partway through, maybe even halfway through, I'm already … beginning to lower my attention to what you're actually saying and switching over to how I'm going to respond." Waiting quietly has a cost too: in Levinson and Torreira's review, gaps over 700 ms tend to signal an unwelcome or unexpected answer.

Groups and second languages squeeze the gap further#

A meeting is harder than a one-on-one chat because people compete for the floor. When Judith Holler's team compared pairs and trios of native English speakers, transitions that weren't answers to a question came sooner in groups: the means for trios and pairs differed by 151 milliseconds. Those were trios, not eight-person meetings, but more people means less room.

Second-language speakers at lower levels arrive late. In a workshop abstract, Simon Wehrle and Simona Sbranna of the University of Cologne found that native German speakers left average gaps of 481 ms, beginners 959 ms, and advanced learners 693 ms among Italian learners of German. These were Italians speaking German, not Spanish speakers in English, but the pattern points to something general: as your level rises, your gap moves toward the native one.

Advanced speakers arrive on time but pay in effort. When 20 pairs of Danes solved the same task in Danish and in English, a Technical University of Denmark team found that in English the median gap dropped by 15 ms, but they took 47 seconds longer on average to finish and spoke more slowly. In a meeting, that price means jumping in with half a sentence or letting the moment pass.

The myth that Spanish speakers talk over everyone#

The idea that Spanish speakers overlap more than English speakers doesn't hold up. Anne Berry recorded two dinners, one in English and one in Spanish, with four women at each, and in that small study published in 1994 found more overlap than expected in both. The difference was duration: Spanish overlaps lasted much longer, built from long listener responses, sentences finished together, and talking on through the overlap.

The Mediterranean stereotype fails in the timing data too. Italian, supposedly overlap-tolerant, showed an average response of 310 ms, with only 17% of responses overlapping in the Stivers study, not an unusual proportion at all.

Your real risk is talking on after a collision. Berry concluded that misunderstandings grow exactly where the two styles differ: overlap and listener feedback. A long "sí, sí, claro" or finishing someone's sentence is support in Spanish. In English, starting at the same time as someone and keeping going means taking the floor. A quick "Sorry, go ahead" fixes it, or "Sorry, just to add…" if you really did want the floor.

What to say: openers for every moment#

A memorized opener comes out without planning and buys you time to build the rest. No study has measured how much it speeds up turn entry in a second language, so treat this as practice advice from English teaching resources.

Sorry and just are the two key words for interrupting. According to BBC Learning English, sorry tells the listener "I'm going to say or do something you might not like, so please don't get upset," and just signals that you're not asking for anything difficult or time-consuming. Their example is "Sean, can I just ask you…?"

To take the floor. "Sorry to interrupt, but…" or "Can I just add something?", both from a Trinity College London classroom resource. Among coworkers, "Could I just jump in there?" With clients, "Do you mind if I add something here?" Skip "Hold on!": the British Council warns it can sound rude, and that tone can make even a polite phrase abrupt.

Wrong: "Hold on!"
Right: "Sorry to interrupt, but can I just add something?"

To get back to your point. "As I was saying…" or "Anyway…", both British Council suggestions. Lost the thread? "Where was I?"

To bring someone in. "Ana, what do you think?" Opening the door by name for a coworker who keeps trying to get in is the most generous move in the meeting.

To get your body ready. Before a longer turn we usually take a breath. Breathe in while the other person finishes their last sentence, not after, and let your opener ride out on that breath.

On video calls, the gap changes shape#

Over Zoom, turns drift much further apart. Testing the same pairs face to face and over video, Julie Boland's team at the University of Michigan found that in free conversation transitions went from 135 ms in person to 487 ms over Zoom, far more than the audio delay explains. "This is one factor that makes Zoom conversations more effortful and tiring than in-person conversations," said Julie Boland, professor of psychology and linguistics.

On a call, a name plus an opener does the work that eye contact does in the room: "Sorry, could I just jump in there?", or the raise-hand button if the meeting is large.

Can you say "Sorry to interrupt, but…" without thinking when the meeting is moving at full speed? That's exactly what Tabla trains: short phrases said out loud, with the clock running, until they come out on their own.

Tom is wrapping up his budget update and you want to add a number. There's no pause in sight. What do you say, and when?

Start right as Tom reaches his last sentence, without waiting for silence: "Sorry to interrupt, but can I just add something?" If he keeps talking and you collide, yield with "Sorry, go ahead" and come back afterward with "As I was saying…"

Pick one opener today and walk into your next meeting with it ready.

Try this today: say "Sorry to interrupt, but can I just add something?" out loud ten times in a row, a little faster each time, and use it in the first ten minutes of your next meeting in English.