Learn to Speak Easy started at home
It began with a bad interview, a speaking club, and two of us testing each other with questions we couldn’t prepare for.
An interview that knocked her confidence
My wife once had an interview that went badly. It knocked her confidence just when she was looking for a new job.
She didn’t let it stop her. She set about building a toolkit of skills to get her confidence back, and her research into interviewing better led her to Toastmasters.
Note: Toastmasters is a worldwide network of public speaking clubs. We’re independent of it.
I went along for support, and got hooked
I tagged along to support her and was hooked straight away. I’d spoken in public before and thought I had no issues. A few free trial sessions showed me how much I still had to learn.
We both threw ourselves into it, and it taught us more than we expected.
- Giving an answer a clear shape
- Pausing instead of saying “um”
- Setting a pace people can follow
- Using our voices, not just our words
- Eye contact and body language
- Listening properly before answering
- Giving feedback that helps, and taking it well
- Finishing on time
- Telling a story people remember
The part of the evening everyone dreads
Every club meeting has a slot called Table Topics. Someone asks a question nobody has seen before, picks a person to answer it, and they speak for one to two minutes with no notes. It’s the most feared part of the evening, and one of the most useful.
Note: Green light at one minute, amber at a minute and a half, red at two.
At home, we started testing each other with Table Topics questions. We went looking for more and found very few places to get them.
So I built one. That’s how Learn to Speak Easy was born.
I’d spoken in public before and thought I had no issues. A few sessions showed me how much I still had to learn.
What it is today
It’s the practice partner we wanted at home: a random question, two minutes on the clock, and honest feedback on how your answer went.
It’s for anyone who has to speak without a script: at interviews, in meetings, at a speaking club, or in a second language. The question generators on this website are free with no sign-up, and the app gives you one prompt a day with feedback, free for as long as you like.
What we believe
- 1
Little and often wins
Two minutes a day does more than an hour once a month. The skill is starting to speak without panicking, and that comes from repetition.
- 2
Kind and specific beats a score
Good feedback tells you one thing to try next time, in plain words. A number out of ten on its own doesn’t help anyone improve.
- 3
Your recordings are yours
Only you can play them, and you can delete them whenever you like. We never use them to train AI.
- 4
Free should really be free
One prompt a day with feedback costs nothing, for as long as you like. No card, no catch.
Who’s behind it
Ash Whitehair
Founder
I live in Norwich and run Norwich Website Design, a small web design company, which is also the company behind Learn to Speak Easy. I design and build the app myself, and I read every message that comes in.