What words per minute should I aim for in English?

Set the target from your own baseline rather than from a published average. Record two minutes on a topic type you will use again, count the words, and treat that figure as week one. A target of "ten per cent faster by week six" is checkable; a target borrowed from a native-speaker average is not, because the task, the recording length and the counting rule all differ.

The order of work matters more than the size of the gain. Fewer long pauses usually changes how a listener hears you within a few weeks, while raw speed stalls as soon as the topic gets harder. If your speed rises but your pause count is flat, you have learned to talk faster about easy things, which is a narrow gain.

Keep the arithmetic honest by never comparing counts taken from recordings of different lengths, and by writing the pauses threshold you used at the top of the sheet. A six-week sheet with a fixed rule and a moving count is evidence. A single impressive recording is an anecdote.

Measuring Fluency: Words per Minute, Pauses and Self-Corrections Over Six Weeks →