Fact · Typing and writing speed
236words per minute
When silences and non-speech noises are removed from conversational telephone speech, the average net speaking rate is 236 words per minute.
Checked against its source on October 16, 2026
In the source's own words
“we find an average “net” speaking rate of 236 WPM, with a minimum of 158 WPM and a maximum of 312 WPM”
Towards an integrated understanding of speaking rate in conversation, Jiahong Yuan et al., Interspeech 2006, 2006, Section 2, speaking rate measures.
Open the original- What it measures
- The corpus is English and Chinese telephone conversations from the Linguistic Data Consortium. The net rate counts only time in which words are spoken.
- What it does not show
- Telephone conversation, not dictation or public speaking. Net rate is an artificial measure: it describes how fast people talk while talking.