speech word time

convert words to time .

How long will it take to read a speech or presentation?

Enter the word count into the tool below (or paste in text) to see how many minutes it will take you to read. Estimates number of minutes based on a slow, average, or fast paced reading speed.

Number of words

Reading speed

Common conversions (average speed)

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Do you wonder how long it takes to deliver your speech?

This website helps you convert the number of words into the time it takes to deliver your speech, online and for free. This tool is useful when preparing a speech or a presentation. The number of minutes you will take is dependent on the number of words and your speed of speech, or reading speed.

Note: This calculator provides an indication only.

Enter details below

The overview below provides an indication of the minutes for a speech (based on an average reading speed of 130 words per minute):

• Words in a 1 minute speech 130 words
• Words in a 2 minute speech 260 words
• Words in a 3 minute speech 390 words
• Words in a 4 minute speech 520 words
• Words in a 5 minute speech 650 words
• Words in a 10 minute speech 1300 words
• Words in a 15 minute speech 1950 words
• Words in a 20 minute speech 2600 words
• How long does a 500 word speech take? 3.8 minutes
• How long does a 1000 word speech take? 7.7 minutes
• How long does a 1250 word speech take? 9.6 minutes
• How long does a 1500 word speech take? 11.5 minutes
• How long does a 1750 word speech take? 13.5 minutes
• How long does a 2000 word speech take? 15.4 minutes
• How long does a 2500 word speech take? 19.2 minutes
• How long does a 5000 word speech take? 38.5 minutes

Introducing Speech Time Calculate

Estimate how many minutes your speeches, presentations, and voice-over scripts will take based on your words per minute rate!

How To Speech Time Calculate Using This Tool?

If you have a certain number of words or a piece of text you want to time, you can either type in the word count or paste the text into the provided area. This tool will then calculate how long it would take to read that text out loud.

The talk time estimate is calculated using the average speaking speed of adults, which is determined to be 183 words per minute based on scientific studies. If you’re interested in how long it would take to read silently, it’s estimated at 238 words per minute ( This data is also backed by research )

You can adjust the slider to change the words per minute value, which will affect the talk time estimate. However, the silent reading time estimate remains fixed at 238 words per minute.

For ease of use, we’ve also provided reference points for slow, average, and fast reading rates below the slider.

To begin anew, simply click the ‘clear text’ button to erase the content and restore the slider back to its original setting of 183.

Who is This Words to Minutes Converter Tool For?

If you are a student wondering how long is my essay or you’ve been tasked with writing a speech and need to know how many words to aim for and how many minutes will it take to deliver or perhaps you are a podcaster, just starting out, who wants the ability to easily synchronize music and spoken word without having to painstakingly calculate seconds between them, then this Speech Time Calculate is precisely for you!

From now on, instead of spending long hours in front of the computer trying to figure out how many seconds it takes for one phrase or section of dialogue to end and another to begin, you can let our innovative tool do all the work and convert your text to time quickly and accurately. With this powerful tool at your disposal, whether you’re giving a TED talk or just need to nail a business presentation, your life will become a little bit easier.

So keep reading to learn more about what this fantastic words to minutes converter has in store for public speakers, aspiring students, and professional radio producers alike!

Whether you want to read the text silently or speak aloud, you can use this tool as both:

• Reading time calculator
• Talk time calculator

Explanation of the Reading Time

Reading time refers to the duration it takes for an average person to read a written text silently while still comprehending its content. Based on an extensive analysis of 190 studies that involved 18,573 participants , research conducted by Marc Brysbaert in 2019 suggests that the typical silent reading speed for an adult individual is approximately 238 words per minute .

To convert word count to read time for a specific text, you can do so by dividing the total word count of the text by this established value of 238. Here is the mathematical equation for determining the duration of reading time in minutes:

Reading Time = Total Word Count / 238

Explanation of the Speech Time

Speech time refers to the duration it takes for an average person to read a text out loud. Based on data from 77 studies involving 5,965 people , it’s been found that most adults read aloud at a speed of approximately 183 words per minute ( research conducted by Marc Brysbaert in 2019 ). To figure out how long it will take to read a specific piece of text aloud, you can divide the total number of words in the text by this average rate of 183 words per minute.

Of course, it’s important to note that talk time can vary depending on factors such as clarity of speech, pauses for emphasis, and use of visual aids. However, using this tool for converting the number of words to minutes can still provide a helpful guideline for planning and practicing your presentation. By having a better understanding of speech rates, you can ensure that your message is delivered effectively and efficiently.

Benefits of Using a Speech Time Calculate

Time management in presentations.

Effective time management during presentations is crucial to ensure the audience remains engaged and the information is accurately conveyed. This is where our words to speaking time converter comes in handy. By using this tool, presenters can easily determine how many words they need to include in their presentation to stay within the allotted time frame.

Not only does it help with time management, but it also ensures that the pacing of the presentation is consistent, making it easier for the audience to follow. With the use of this presentation time calculator, presenters can confidently deliver their presentations without the worry of running over time or rushing through it.

Estimated speech time for public speaking

Public speaking can be nerve-wracking, especially when you have too little or too much information to fill your time slot. You wonder only if there were an accurate public speaking time calculator available so that you could be able to allocate the appropriate amount of time to each section of your presentation, ensuring that you cover all the necessary points without rushing or going over time.

Effective pacing is key in ensuring your message is delivered with clarity and impact.

Most public speakers target an average of 130-150 words per minute for their spoken content, meaning you should aim to limit your speaking time to roughly one minute per 130-150 words. While this may take some practice to achieve, the end result is a confident, well-timed delivery that keeps your audience engaged from start to finish.

Remember, in public speaking, less is often more—take your time to breathe and emphasize key points. Your audience will appreciate your thoughtful and measured approach. For that, you can use this tool and adjust your words to speech time.

Accurate estimations for audiobooks and podcasts

As more and more people turn to audiobooks and podcasts for their entertainment and information needs, accurate estimations of listening time have become more important than ever. After all, there’s nothing worse than settling in for a quick listen only to find yourself trapped in a story that goes on for hours longer than you anticipated.

That’s why it’s great to see publishers and podcast producers taking estimated reading time seriously, providing listeners with the information they need to choose the right content for their schedule. Whether you’re looking for a quick listen on your daily commute or a lengthy distraction for a lazy Sunday afternoon, accurate estimations using this words to speak time calculator make it easier than ever to find the perfect content.

Some Popular Speech Times

how many words in a 2 minute speech

Almost 300 words

how many words in a 3 minute speech

Almost 450 words

how many words in a 4 minute speech

Almost 600 words

how many words in a 15 minute speech

Almost 2250 words

The speech time is calculated taking 150 words per minute as reference value

Common conversions (average speed)

How long does it take to read 500 words?

3.8 minutes

How long does it take to read 750 words?

5.8 minutes

How long does it take to read 1000 words?

7.7 minutes

How long does it take to read 1200 words?

9.2 minutes

How long does it take to read 1500 words?

11.5 minutes

How long does it take to read 1800 words?

13.8 minutes

How long does it take to read 2000 words?

15.4 minutes

How long does it take to read 3000 words?

23.1 minutes

As the world becomes more fast-paced, time is a precious commodity. Determining how long your script will take to read, whether for a presentation or a video, can make a significant difference in engaging and retaining your audience’s attention.

That’s where our Words to Time Converter comes in handy. It’s a valuable tool for anyone working in various professions, from broadcast journalists to teachers to executives. No matter the industry, time is of the essence, and knowing how long your speech or presentation will take is crucial for effective communication.

Speech time calculator

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Speaking time calculator

Type or paste your speech to instantly calculate your speaking time

How does this speech timer work

To begin, delete the sample text and either type in your speech or copy and paste it into the editor.

The average reading speed and speech rate is 200 words per minute and is the default setting above. Once you paste your speech, click “Play” and Speechify will analyze your speech by the number of words and generate a time to speak it at the default rate.

You can listen to your speech in various accents or languages. If you are aiming for a specific timeframe for your speech, click edit to either increase or decrease the number of words to see how long it would take to speak them.

You can also increase or decrease the speaking rate to gauge how fast or slow you should speak in order to get to a specific time with the number of words you have in your speech.

To get to that perfect word count to fit with the speech length time, you’ll have to keep editing between words per minute (WPM) and number of words.

The best part is that you can share your speech in audio format to your friends, relatives, or peers to review it. They can simply click play and listen to your speech.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many words are there in a 1 minute speech.

Based on the average speed of speech, there are 150 words in a 1 minute speech.

How many words are there in a 2 minute speech?

There are 300 words per minute in a 2 minute speech. 2 minutes isn’t a long time so when you speak, you could endure the average speaking rate.

How many words are there in a 3 minute speech?

On average there are 450 words in a 3 minute speech. This is based on the average speech rate of 250 words per minute. At the 3 minute mark, even a novice speaker could keep going at the rate they started – with some practice.

How many words are there in a 4 minute speech?

On average there are 600 words in a 4 minute speech. This is based on the average speech rate of 250 words per minute. Still, even a novice speaker could maintain the 150 words per minute rate. Try it in the Soundbite above. Set your words per minute and speak along to see if you could endure consistency over 4 minutes.

How many words are there in a 5 minute speech?

On average there are 750 words in a 5 minute speech. This is based on the average speech rate of 250 words per minute. While this is simple math, we after all are humans and 5 minutes can be pushing the boundaries of a consistent speech tempo and words per minute.

How many words are there in a 10 minute speech?

In a 10 minute speech aim for 1000 words. The math might tell you 1,500 words but consider your speech. You might need pauses, rest for your voice, dramatic effects, and perhaps even audience interaction. Also, it becomes quite difficult to endure a consistent 150 words per minute speech rate for 10 minutes. Consider your listeners. We doubt very few people would want to listen to a precisely 150 words per minute speech for 10 minutes. It wouldn’t be engaging. And in a speech, you should engage and communicate.

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Convert Words to Time

Calculate how long it will take to read a speech or presentation

Enter the word count of your speech below to see how long it will take you to read. Estimate the number of minutes based on a slow, average, or fast speaking pace.

Number of words

Reading speed, common conversions (average speed).

Convert words to time

Word per minute speech

Enter the number of words in the box below to find out how many minutes it will take you to give your speech.

Word Counter

Paste your text here to find out the word count

Word Count: 0

Online Stopwatch

Time your speech on a timer for the actual time it takes you to deliver your speech, practice.

Our tool comes in handy when you are preparing for a speech or creating a presentation. The length of your speech depends on the amount of text and your speaking or reading speed.

Updated on November 26, 2023

Words to Time Calculator

Words to time calculator is online tool that convert words to time in minutes. It can be used to calculate speech time or convert words into time.

Enter Number of Words or paste text for auto-counting

Reading speed

Words to Speech Time Conversion (average speed)

What is words to time converter.

The words to time converter is a calculator that helps users find the speed at which they recognize and form words while communicating with others. The platform works on a standard formula that enables you to find the words per minute conveniently.

Whether it’s about solving the speed in typing or speaking, or reading, one can easily calculate the exact value using this tool. For calculating the words per Minute here, all you have to do is, simply enter number of words or paste text for auto word counter and select speed to get speech time instantly. Once you have successfully entered all the values in the provided space very carefully, the words-to-minutes calculator will automatically display the speech time in minutes for you.

This words to time calculator has following reading speed options:

• Slow: 100 words per minute
• Average:  130 words per minute
• Fast: 160 words per minute.

Words to time converter is a fundamental tool designed to assist people looking forward to converting the number of words into the time taken to deliver your speech. The tool is available online and offline, making it easier for people to prepare their speeches or presentations effectively. The number of minutes required for the address depends upon the number of words and speed of vocabulary or reading.

How to Convert Words to Time

To convert words to time in minutes, follow below steps:

• Enter number of words or paste text for auto counting words in text.
• Select reading speed for speech from slow, average and fast options.
• Now, words to time converter displays speech time in minutes instantly.

Words to Pages Converter

Numbers to Words Converter

Characters to Words Converter

Words To Speech Time Calculator

Speech Time Conversion for fast reading speed

Have you ever thought about how many words you must have in your speech to make it perfect? Finding out the number of words to speak per Minute to ensure that your audience will follow up your speed is quite hard.

Although these questions seem entirely pointless, they can prove advantageous in different situations. This Words to speech time in minutes converter can be your best friend and offer excellent assistance anytime.

Writing a speech is a bit of a challenging task. Ideally, one needs to consider the different factors to put things on the platform. When considering essentials for the address, time is a primary concern that comes forward. Interest, knowledge, attitude, and quality are the few things that push the audience to stay connected with your speech till the end. The length of the address is something that also needs to be considered to put on a positive impact on the audience.

So, guys! You have learned how to use words to the minute converter on your device successfully. It is a beautiful tool whose integration has made it easier for users to conveniently find their reading and speaking speed.

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The Read Time

Words to time converter, accurately estimate talk time for presentations, speeches and voice-over scripts.

Words per Minute:

Not sure about your reading speed? Get it tested with our Free Reading Speed Test

Learn to Speed Read with our Speed Reader

A tool to find out what any word count looks like: What does any word count look like?

Require a sentence count? Do try out our Sentence Counter

Also, convert text to speech with Read My Text

Does This Free Tool Convert Words To Time?

Yes, this tool essentially converts words to time by estimating speech time for texts of all lengths. This is ideal for people who want to calculate talk time for presentations, speeches and voice-over scripts beforehand

How Do I Use This Words To Time Tool?

• If you know the number of words, enter this amount in number format into the text area OR if you have a body of text, just copy and paste this onto the text area.
• The tool will automatically calculate the Talk Time based on your input. The default Talk Time estimate is based on an oral reading rate of 183 words per minute ; which is considered to be the accepted average for adults according to scientific research. Silent Reading Time is estimated based on a fixed reading speed of 238 words per minute .
• Drag the slider to change the words per minute value to see corresponding Talk Time estimates. This will not have an effect on the Silent Reading Time estimate as the reading rate is fixed at 238 words per minute. Slow, Average and Fast reading rates have been denoted in the above table for guidance.
• Press the 'clear text' button to empty the text area and reset the slider to its default value of 183.

Is 183 Words Per Minute An Accurate Measure Of Oral Reading Speed?

Yes, based on a paper published by Marc Brysbaert , the average speed for reading aloud is estimated to be 183 words per minute for adults. This value is based on 77 studies involving 5965 participants. The paper further states that reading rates are lower for older adults, children and readers with English as a second language.

What Is Read Time?

Read time is the time taken for an average person to silently read a piece of text while maintaining reading comprehension. Based on the meta-analysis of 100's of studies involving over 18000 participants, the average silent reading speed for an adult individual has been estimated to be approximately 238 words per minute (Marc Brysbaert,2019) .

The reading time of a piece of text can thus be deduced by dividing the total word count by this value of 238. Below is the mathematical formula for calculating reading time in minutes:

Reading Time = Total Word Count / 238

If the reading material consists of images or illustrations, we can assume that an average reader spends around 5 seconds per image, which is equivalent to 0.083 minutes. Hence, we can further modify this formula as below:

Reading Time = Total Word Count / 238 + (Number of Images * 0.083)

Simple Math Really! 🙂

How Long Does It Take To Read 1000 Words?

Assuming the average reading speed of an adult individual is 238 words per minute, it takes approximately 4 minutes and 12 seconds to read 1000 words.

Reading Time For Popular Word Counts (Table)

How long does it take to read 100 pages.

Assuming a page consists of 500 words, it approximately takes 3 hours and 30 minutes to read 100 pages.

Reading Time For Popular Page Counts (Table)

What is speech time.

Speech Time is the time taken for an average person to read aloud a piece of text. Based on the meta-analysis of nearly 80 studies involving 6000 participants, the average oral reading speed for an adult individual is considered to be 183 words per minute (Marc Brysbaert,2019) . The speech time of a piece of text can then be deduced by dividing the total word count by this value of 183. Again simple Math. 🙂

How Long Does It Take To Speak 1000 Words?

Assuming the average oral reading speed of an adult individual is 183 words per minute, it takes approximately 5 minutes and 28 seconds to orate 1000 words.

What Other Metrics Does The Read Time Provide?

In addition to reading time and speech time, The Read Time provides the word count for texts of all lengths.

Who Is It For?

The Read Time is an ideal free tool for scriptwriters, content writers, educators, students and just about anyone who wants to measure the number of words and reading time for texts of all lengths.

Is My Text/Data Safe?

thereadtime.com does not store or process any text/data on its servers while the computations are done purely on the client's browser.

Free Online Words to Minutes Calculator

How long should your 5 minutes speech be? How many words should your essay be to take 5 minutes reading?

To find an answer, you need words to minutes calculator. IvyPanda Experts prepared this post, where you will find 10 free words to minutes converters, find out how to measure your speaking rate, and how long your X-minute speech has to be.

🏆 Top 10 Free Words to Minutes Converter

🎤 how long does a 4-minute speech have to be, ⏱ how to measure your speech length, 1. speech in minutes.

This is a free-to-use speech calculator to measure how long it takes to deliver your speech. To use this tool, you need to enter the word count and choose the reading speed: from slow (100 words per minute) to fast (160 words per minute). No registration is needed.

2. Words to Time

Words To Time as an ad-free text to speech calculator that will provide you with the number of minutes immediately. You can type the number of words you want to convert or paste your text and grab the result. Don’t forget to pick up the reading speed!

3. The Word Finder

This is a free speech length estimator. No sign-up, no ads, or captcha. Type the word count, choose speaking speed, and grab the result immediately. There are also available various cool apps like Font Generators, Backwards Text Converter, Time Calc, etc.

4. EdgeStudio

Edge Studio, the voice recording company, developed a free online script timer. Depending on the data available, you can put the words count, paste your text, or type the average words per line. You will get a result instantly after you click the button “Submit.” On the tab “Statistics,” you can find out stats about reading speed, word, and line count.

5. Copywritely

At this website, you can measure the time of reading your text within a couple of clicks using its words to minutes calculator. Paste your text, and at the bottom of the field, you will see the word count and the approximate speech time.

The tool is available in English, Russian, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, and Dutch. Also, there are available Grammar Checker, Alphabetizer, Words to Pages, and other apps that will become handy for any writing purpose.

6. Read-O-Meter

Read-O-Meter is a simple and hassle-free word to minutes calculator to estimate the reading time. All you have to do is just type or paste the text you want to calculate the speech or article length and press the button “Estimate Reading Time.”

7. TheVoice Realm

This speech length calculator was designed by the online voice casting company. To use it, you need to paste your text or the word count and find out the estimated time. The page also contains background information about the speaking speed and how many minutes in 300, 900, and more words.

To use the Words to Time Conversion tool, you need to know the word count of your text. To get the estimated speech time, you need to type the number of words and adjust reading or speaking time, and you will get an immediate result. The tool is free and contains no ads.

9. Debatrix

This is another ad-free word to minute speech calculator to find out how long your speech will take. To measure the estimated time, you need to paste the text. The online app will count the number of words and speech duration.

10. TextConverter

The website provides plenty of tools that will be useful for students, SEO specialists, and writers.

Choose the text type: speech or locution, reading rhythm, and get the estimated time for your project. The app also will count the number of words and characters.

On the website, you can also find other utilities: Text Randomizer, Upper and Lower Case converters, E-mails Extractor, Hashtags, etc. The site is available in English and Portuguese languages.

Why do we need to measure the reading or speaking time?

There can be a variety of reasons. For example, you should prepare a 5-minute speech, or your post should not exceed 10 minutes of reading.

Speaking or reading time depends on the person who is going to read the text. Below, you will find a table that will help you quickly determine the duration of the content. The table is divided into two parts. The first one gives you reference information of minutes to words conversion. The second one shows the inverse correlation.

This table provides only the estimated information. The actual speech duration depends on your speaking pace, pauses, and so on. Below you will find out what impacts and how to measure your speaking rate.

Keep reading!

In this post, we will share with you how to measure how long your speech will be. Also, you will find out what impacts your speaking pace and how to practice it.

Determine the Word Count

First things first, so let’s determine the number of words you want to turn to minutes. If you use the Microsoft Word or Open Office, you will find out the word count on the status bar at the bottom of the screen.

In Google Docs, you can click Tools>>Word Count, or use the shortcut CTRL+SHIFT+C. If you use other word processors, refer to the help system of the tool.

Determine the Speech Pace

If you don’t know how many words you speak per minute, there are a couple of options to find out it. Check them below!

Use the sample text. Here is how it works: take your sample text, start the timer, and begin reading it aloud. When the minute is up, use your word processing app to figure out how many words you read. This will be your speed of speech.

Record yourself. Another way to find out your speaking pace is to record your speech. Set a timer for a minute, read any text, or talk about any topic while recording it. Then, listen to it and count the words you spoke. You can count it manually or use the software, for example, IBM Speech to Text calculator .

What Impacts Your Speaking Rate?

The speaking rate is individual. There are many factors that influence it. Here are some of them:

• Pauses, and rhetorical devices. The more it has, the slower your speaking rate will be.
• Condition of the speaker. If you’re angry, excited, or in a hurry, you will probably speak faster than usual. On the other hand, when you are tired, it makes it harder to speak quickly.
• Urgency. Here’s the deal: in emergencies, we are more likely will speak quicker than in a calm environment.
• Mental issues. Some mental conditions may lead to a slower or faster speech rate.
• Audience and event. For example, if you are recording audio for a radio ad, you will speak faster, since you are limited by the time. Another example is when you are trying to explain the complicated term to students. More likely, you will slow down your speech. During the presentation, you can also make pauses while changing the slides or checking your notes.
• Environment. Yes, your background directly impacts your speaking pace: your dialect, family, culture, friends, and neighbors, etc.
• Words and content complexity. The long and complex words also impact your speaking pace, making it slower. The same can be said about complex content—it requires more time to deliver it to the audience. Remember about this if you are limited by time.
• Language. Depending on the language you speak, your speaking rate will vary. In 2011, the University of Lyon researchers asked volunteers to read twenty texts in their native languages: English, German, French, Spanish, Mandarin, Japanese, and Italian. The purpose of studies was to find out how the density of syllables impacts the rate of communication.

Here’s what they found: the Mandarin language is the slowest one, with 5.18 syllables per second. However, it has the highest information density. The fastest language is Japanese, with its 7.84 syllables per second rate. English language speaking rate is 6.19 syllables per second.

Another interesting fact about the speaking rate is the world record shattered by Steve Woodmore . He articulates 637 words in one minute!

If you are wondering about the average speaking rates, check the table below:

Source: National Center for Voice and Speech

But what about reading? Is the reading pace the same as speaking?

On average, people read 180-300 words per minute. However, speed readers can read 1000+ words per minute.

How to Practice Your Speaking Rate?

You might have met people called a motor-mouth — they speak too fast, and words seem rocket out from their mouths. Others, on the opposite, speak too slowly. You can compare them with sloths from the movie Zootopia:

Both these cases can be fun for a while. However, the too fast and too slow speech will make the listeners lose their interest.

The solution is to practice your speaking rate, making it flexible, and adapting to your audience’s needs.

Below, you will find five easy exercises that will help you to develop a flexible speaking rate:

Read children’s books aloud.

Here’s the deal: when you read stories to a child, you might notice that some passages require you to speak faster, while others must be read at a slow pace.

Read a story several times aloud to become familiar with the text and its passages. If it is possible, record yourself. Then, try reading the text and change the pace. Listen to the records to hear the differences. Think of how the speaking rate impacts the comprehension of the text.

Read scientific reports.

You may find this exercise boring, but yet it will be helpful for delivering complex things in your future speeches.

First, pick up the newspaper or magazine. For example, you can try a Science magazine website — there are plenty of interesting topics, reports, and articles to discover. After you select the report, read it silently to familiarize yourself with the material. The next step is to read it aloud (don’t forget about recording yourself!), noting which parts of the text should be read at a slow pace, and which — faster.

You can extend this exercise and image that you read the article to someone who knows nothing about this topic. Listen to the records and pay attention to the changes you made.

Read your own class speeches.

Make a series of experiments with one of your old class speeches. First, record it delivering the speech at your normal speaking pace. Check the time it took to deliver.

The next step is to mark down some passages to read at slower and others — at a faster rate. Now, read it aloud again while adhering to the marks. Listen to the records; note how changed the time and overall speech comprehension.

Listen to various speakers.

Watch the movie, listen to the news on TV, and watch the classical play. Compare the speech rates of the speakers. You will notice the rhetorical devices they use and how effective their speech is. Then, experiment with your own speech and see how it changes.

Read texts you are familiar with.

Read the text you already know at a quicker or slower pace than usual. Record yourself and play it back. Note the places where your speaking rate was effective and where it wasn’t. Then, mark these places and reread the text again, implementing these changes and recording yourself. See how your speech has changed.

These simple exercises will help you to produce effective speeches for various audiences.

There are a couple of things you need to remember when you speak:

• Fast speaking indicates urgency, passion, and emotions. If you want to stimulate and excite the attention of your listeners, speak quickly. However, you should remember that after a couple of minutes of listening to fast speech, it becomes overwhelming.
• Slow speaking, on the other hand, indicates the seriousness of your point, its importance. Use this approach to grab the attention of your audience. The slow pace also will help them to easier process the information you want to deliver. Similar to fast speaking, too slow pace in your entire speech also can overwhelm and bore your listeners.

How to Make the Speech Memorable

Pace yourself to highlight the most important parts of the speech, and your audience will memorize what you said. The key to any great speech is the retention of the audience. Check the IvyPanda expert advice to make your talks memorable :

• Tell stories. Interesting examples not only illustrate your speech but also help listeners to recall what you said. Humor and short stories from your life will also help you to grab the attention of your audience. Important notice: tell only relevant ones and don’t overuse them.
• Use pauses and breaks. Just like a novel is broken into chapters and paragraphs, pauses in your speech serve as a signal of the end of one point and transition to another.

Use simple and short sentences and phrases. Short sentences and simple language will help you to maximize the engagement and comprehension of your audience. Avoid complex words unless you are talking about specific tech terms in front of the professionals in this sphere.

• Engage your audience with questions. At the beginning of the speech, ask your audience a question or two. This method will give them a hook and grab their attention.
• Review your speech after you wrote it. Check if everything is clear. Rehearse it in various rates and note places where you need to speed up your speech and where to slow it down.

Now you know how to find out the length of your speech, have all the tools to convert words to minutes, and advice on how to practice your speaking rate. Don’t forget to check our other tools to write outstanding speeches.

Updated: Oct 25th, 2023

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When you are working on a 5-minute speech, you may want to know how many words you should write. This page contains links to 10 free online words to minutes converters. Here you will also find tips on how to measure your speaking rate and how to make your speech memorable.

How To Convert Words Into Time For Just-Right Speeches

Timing is crucial when delivering speeches. Event organizers plan on a certain amount of time for each speech, and individuals who speak too long throw off the timing and risk losing audience interest. Smart speakers convert their words into time to calculate how long their speeches will be and practice them, along with visuals, to get accurate timing.

Public speaking is daunting, and timing is one of the biggest challenges.  Getting it right is crucial for a successful and memorable presentation.

This article explores tips and techniques to help you  master the art of timing in public speaking  and deliver a powerful speech that engages and inspires your audience. When you learn to convert your words into time, you are on the road to delivering a speech that is timed just right.

Table of Contents

Why is The Timing Of Speeches Important?

A speech that is too short or too long may leave the audience feeling dissatisfied or disinterested. The length of a speech should be appropriate to the occasion, the topic, and the audience.

Timing is especially important  in speech events with strict running schedules, such as debate, poetry recitation, or stand-up comedy. Going over the allotted time not only throws off the event timing but can also result in disqualification or point deductions.

When a wedding or awards ceremony has room for speakers, long speeches drag out this part of the event. Speaking too long may belabor the point, kill the moment, and bore the audience. Keeping the timing right is crucial to ensuring the audience stays engaged and interested throughout the speech. In short,  timing is an essential aspect of public speaking that can make or break a presentation.

What Impact Does An Overly-Long Speech Have On An Event?

An overly-long speech harms an event in several ways.

Firstly, it  disrupts the schedule  and causes delays in the event, which is frustrating for the audience, especially if they have other commitments to attend to. This is particularly true for political speeches or speeches at weddings, where there is often a tight schedule to follow.

Secondly, an overly-long speech  affects audience engagement . This is especially true in the case of an elevator pitch or a speech in a corporate setting, where attention spans are typically shorter.

Lastly, an overly-long speech can be seen as  disrespectful to the audience’s time and attention.  The audience may feel its time is being wasted and become frustrated or resentful towards the speaker.

How Can Speakers Know How Long Their Speech Will Be?

Speakers can use  several methods to know how long their speech will be .

One common method is to use a  speech converter, a tool that converts the written text of a speech into an estimate of the time it will take to deliver the speech.  These tools typically take into account factors such as the number of words, the reading speed of the speaker, and pauses and breaks in the speech.

Another way to estimate the length of a speech is to  practice delivering it.  Rehearsing the speech several times and timing each run-through gives the speaker a good idea of how long the speech will take to deliver. The actual delivery time may vary slightly depending on the delivery speed and the level of audience interaction.

In addition, some speakers prefer to use  timing cues  during the speech to help them stay on track. These cues may include using a stopwatch or timer, having a moderator give a signal at critical points in the speech, or using visual aids such as cue cards or slides with time markers.

How Do You Convert Words Into Time For Speech Delivery?

Speech calculators  typically work by using an algorithm that considers various factors, such as the average reading speed of a person, their speaking pace, the number of words in the speech, and any pauses or breaks included in the text.

Generally, a person’s average speaking speed is about 130 to 150 words per minute (wpm) . Based on this average speaking rate, speeches containing 40 words would take less than a minute to deliver, while lectures containing 100 words would take around 40 to 50 seconds.

A 500-word speech would take around 3½ to 4 minutes to deliver, while an address containing 750 words would take 5 to 6 minutes. A 1000-word speech would take about 7 to 8 minutes.

To calculate the number of words to speak in an hour, we use the average reading speed of 130 to 150 words per minute.

• Assuming a speech rate of 135 words per minute, a speaker would say about 8,100 words in an hour.
• Assuming a speech rate of 150 words per minute, a speaker would say about 9,000 words in an hour.

Use this easy time calculator to work out your word count for a specified number of minutes:

How Much Time Does It Take To Use SIides, Charts, And Other Visuals?

The time frames for using slides, charts, and other visuals in a speech depend on the  complexity of the visuals , the amount of information being presented, and the audience’s familiarity with the subject matter.

Generally, it’s best to keep visuals concise and to the point. Visual aids should  support the speaker’s message and not detract from it . A good rule of thumb is to limit visuals to no more than  one slide or chart per minute of speaking time.

When creating slides or charts, keep them simple and easy to read. Use large fonts and clear, contrasting colors to ensure the information is easily visible from a distance . Practice the timing  of each slide or chart beforehand so the delivery flows smoothly and doesn’t detract from the overall message.

A simple chart or graph may only take a few seconds to present, while a more complex one may take up to a minute or more . Factor in the time it takes to set up the visual aids, such as connecting a laptop or adjusting the projector.

The Importance Of Practicing Your Speech With Visuals

Practicing your speech with visuals is important because it allows you to ensure that the delivery flows smoothly and the visuals enhance the message.  It also helps you  avoid technical issues  and saves time during the presentation.

By practicing with the visuals, you can get a sense of how long each slide or chart takes to present and adjust your timing accordingly. Finally, practicing with visuals helps build confidence in delivering the message and enhances the overall impact of the presentation .

Why You Should Have A Plan To Shorten Your Speech If Necessary

Having a plan to shorten your speech length is necessary because  unexpected events  can occur during a presentation, such as technical difficulties or a change in the event schedule. It also allows you to adjust your delivery to keep the audience engaged and prevent them from losing interest.

It also allows you to adjust your delivery to keep an audience engaged and prevent it from losing interest.

By having a plan to shorten the speech, you prioritize the most relevant points and ensure that the key message is delivered. It shows professionalism and respect for the audience’s time by providing a concise and effective presentation.

Adam Howarth

Adam covers the topic of Public Speaking for Digital Authority. From his first experience of oratory with his school debating society to his more recent experiences of promoting the local business scene in Wrexham, Wales, he has always been involved in public speaking.

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Speech calculator:  how long does it take to deliver your speech?

With this speech calculator, you can easily calculate how long it will take you to deliver a speech.

How many words per minute?

In the English language, people speak about 140 words per minute. A fast speaker will get to 170 words per minute, a slow speaker will use around 110 words.

Professional speechwriters use this speech calculator to find out how long a speech takes.

Copy your full text and paste it in the box below:

The entire analysis happens within your browser. The text will NOT be stored and NOT be sent over the web.

Word count:

Your speech rate:

Speech duration:

FAQ’s

How many words is a 3 minute speech  .

A speaker with an average speaking speed will need 420 words for a 3 minute speech. A fast speaker will need 510 words while a slow speaker will only need 330 words.

How many words is a 5 minute speech?  

A speaker with an average speaking speed will need 700 words for a 5 minutes speech. A fast speaker will need 850 words for the same speech length. A slow speaker will only need 550 words.

Is this a word count calculator?  

The speech calculator is a word count calculator. Insert your text and the tool will automatically calculate the word count.  It will then also calculate the speech length depending on the selected talking speed.

How to best select the right speaking speed?

Fast, average or slow? The answer depends on the speaker, the speech type and the speech setting.

The speaking speed of the speaker

Some speakers are natural fast or slow speakers. The best speakers keep a variance during their speeches. They speed up to keep momentum and slow down to put special emphasis on other parts.

The speech type

The type of speech matters a lot in selecting the right speech speed. If you read the whole speech word for word from paper then your average speech speed will be lower. If you intend to use the written speech as speaker notes then your average speaking speed will be much higher.

The speech setting

An informal setting will have a faster average speaking speed compared to a more formal setting.

Keeping all three factors in mind you will able make a better judgement about selecting the right speech speed in the speech calculator.

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Words to Minutes Calculator

Convert words to minutes to find out the time of your speech or text reading

Paste a text

Paste a content for which you want to calculate reading or speaking time.

Choose a speed of speech

Set how many words per minute you usually read or pronounce.

Evaluate a result

Get instant result with forecast of time period your speech will take.

Fix content issues

Take time on fixing grammar and readability issues to make your speech clear.

What’s inside?

Plagiarism checker

If you are interested to make your speech unique, use duplicate content checker to detect the parts of content that are copied from other websites.

Keyword density checker

Sometimes keyword stuffing can spoil a speech. Keyword density tool will show what words are used the most often in your speech and replace them with synonyms.

Article rewriter

Online editor inside helps to get a list of highlighted issues, fix them instantly and make your content easy to understand.

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Words to Time

Easily convert the number of words into the time that you will take to read or deliver the speech, about words to time converter tool.

Words to Time is an online tool to count and calculate the estimated reading time of a given number of words. It is a useful tool for anyone who needs to give a presentation or speech and wants to make sure they stay within a specific time limit. By entering the number of words in their text or speech, users can quickly find out how long it will take to deliver their message. This tool is accessible from any device with an internet connection and is easy to use.

How Calculate Words To Minutes/Time

Using Words to Time is simple and straightforward. Follow these steps:

• Enter the number of words in your text or speech in the input field provided. (You can use word counter tool to count the number of words in your text.)
• Select the reading speed you want. You can choose from a range of reading speeds, depending on how fast you want to deliver your message.
• Click the “Calculate” button to initiate the calculation process.
• After the calculation is complete, the tool will display the estimated speaking time on the screen. You can adjust your text or speech accordingly to fit within your allotted time.

Benefits of this tool

Words to Time offers several benefits to its users:

• Accuracy: The tool provides an accurate estimate of the speaking time based on the number of words in the text and the chosen reading speed.
• Efficiency: It is a quick and efficient way to calculate the speaking time of a text or speech.
• Customization: Users can choose from a range of reading speeds to calculate the speaking time that best fits their needs.
• Convenience: Words to Time is an online tool that can be accessed from any device with an internet connection, making it a convenient option for users on the go.
• Time-saving: The tool saves users time by providing them with an estimated speaking time, allowing them to adjust their text or speech accordingly without having to go through the process of practicing and timing it themselves.

Convert Words To Time

Number of words

Reading speed

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What is a Words to Time Calculator?

A word to time calculator is a tool that helps voice actors or any other user estimate their speaking rate to the script related to the job they are completing or responding to. Mastering the number of words you will speak per minute will enable you to estimate the time it will take to read a script, guiding you in determining the correct price for the job.

However, the number of words you speak per minute may vary depending on the stylistic decisions. For example, if you are using an announcer read or the character you represent speaks in a relaxed voice. But this word-to-time calculator will get you into the proximity.

Our online homework helpers are ready to craft the right speech for you. Just fill in a few details and you are good to go.

What is Read Time?

Read time is the time you take to read a text or script silently while maintaining reading comprehension. According to research involving more than 18000 participants and 100's studies, the approximate words per minute for an average silent reading adult is 238 words.

How Do I Use This Word to Time Tool?

Enter the number of words in your script or paste in text from your document in the special box for auto counting.

Secondly, choose your reading speed. To get the exact or correct time, you have to choose your reading speed between slow, average, and fast, as it greatly impacts your timing.

The word to time tool will give you the exact time to read a specific document. Whether making a business presentation or a wedding speech, word conversion to time should be correct.

If you find your content is longer than expected, feel free to use our free summarizer tool to condense your content so it fits the time required.

Common Conversion (Average Speed)

Below is a preview of the result you should expect from our word-to-time converter assuming your reading speed is average.

• How long does it take to read 500 words? 3.8 minutes
• How long does it take to read 800 words? 6.2 minutes
• How long does it take to read 1000 words? 7.7 minutes
• How long does it take to read 1200 words? 9.2 minutes
• How long does it take to read 1500 words? 11.5 minutes
• How long does it take to read 1800 words? 13.8 minutes
• How long does it take to read 2000 words? 15.4 minutes
• How long does it take to read 3000 words? 23.1 minutes

If you need to know the number of pages in your speech, you can use the words to pages tool to determine the number of words.

• How many words are in a 1 minute speech? 125 words
• How many words are in a 2 minute speech? 250 words
• How many words are in a 3 minute speech? 375 words
• How many words are in a 4 minute speech? 500 words
• How many words are in a 5 minute speech? 625 words
• How many words are in a 10 minute speech? 1250 words
• How many words are in a 15 minute speech? 1875 words
• How many words are in a 20 minute speech? 2500 words
• How many words are in a 30 minute speech? 3750 words

Why should I Use the Convert Speech Words to Minutes?

Using the word to time calculator is vital while preparing for a presentation or speech , specifically when you have limited time to relay your message and conclude your ideas. Converting word to minute lets you know the length of your content and whether the time frame is enough. However, the time may vary depending on your delivery speed.

Knowing your content's minutes lets you decide if you should adjust your content length. When preparing your speech, you should balance the reading speed, the number of words, and the content.

How to Craft an Outstanding Speech?

The content of your speech is crucial whether you are making a wedding or graduation speech or a presentation for a business meeting. Public speaking requires you to be confident, prepare in advance and equip yourself with the necessary tool that helps you deliver your speech. The main aim of your speech is to catch your audience's attention, engage with them and convey a message that will deliver your ideas effectively and clearly. Follow the following tips when crafting your speech:

• Use the first person when writing and use a conversational tone.
• Briefly introduce yourself at the beginning of your speech.
• Prepare a striking open statement/outline.
• Analyze your speech in structural steps.
• Begin every paragraph with a topic sentence.
• Do not shy off from expressing your opinions.
• Practice your speech before delivering it. It will help you know the content and build your confidence and comfort.

Please share your experiences, including personal stories, and do not hesitate to share personal opinions, as it helps engage with your audience. If you are having challenges crafting your speech, you can engage speech writing services as you concentrate on other important matters.

Alternatively, you can use our speech generator tool to create content for your speech. It's fast easy and free!

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Words To Time Converter

Estimate how many minutes your speeches, presentations, and voice-over scripts will take based on your words per minute rate!

Words per Minute: 183

How To Convert Words to Minutes Using This Tool?

If you have a certain number of words or a piece of text you want to time, you can either type in the word count or paste the text into the provided area. This tool will then calculate how long it would take to read that text out loud.

The talk time estimate is calculated using the average speaking speed of adults, which is determined to be 183 words per minute based on scientific studies. If you’re interested in how long it would take to read silently, it’s estimated at 238 words per minute ( This data is also backed by research )

You can adjust the slider to change the words per minute value, which will affect the talk time estimate. However, the silent reading time estimate remains fixed at 238 words per minute. 

For ease of use, we’ve also provided reference points for slow, average, and fast reading rates below the slider.

To begin anew, simply click the ‘clear text’ button to erase the content and restore the slider back to its original setting of 183.

I. Who is This Words to Minutes Converter Tool For?

If you are a student wondering how long is my essay or you’ve been tasked with writing a speech and need to know how many words to aim for and how many minutes will it take to deliver or perhaps you are a podcaster, just starting out, who wants the ability to easily synchronize music and spoken word without having to painstakingly calculate seconds between them, then this words to time converter (or speech time calculator-you may call it if you are a public speaker) is precisely for you! 

From now on, instead of spending long hours in front of the computer trying to figure out how many seconds it takes for one phrase or section of dialogue to end and another to begin, you can let our innovative tool do all the work and convert your text to time quickly and accurately. With this powerful tool at your disposal, whether you’re giving a TED talk or just need to nail a business presentation, your life will become a little bit easier.

So keep reading to learn more about what this fantastic words to minutes converter has in store for public speakers, aspiring students, and professional radio producers alike!

Whether you want to read the text silently or speak aloud, you can use this tool as both:

• Reading time calculator
• Talk time calculator

II.I Explanation of the Reading Time

Reading time refers to the duration it takes for an average person to read a written text silently while still comprehending its content. Based on an extensive analysis of 190 studies that involved 18,573 participants , research conducted by Marc Brysbaert in 2019 suggests that the typical silent reading speed for an adult individual is approximately 238 words per minute .

To convert word count to read time for a specific text, you can do so by dividing the total word count of the text by this established value of 238. Here is the mathematical equation for determining the duration of reading time in minutes:

Reading Time = Total Word Count / 238

II.II Explanation of the Speech Time

Speech time refers to the duration it takes for an average person to read a text out loud. Based on data from 77 studies involving 5,965 people , it’s been found that most adults read aloud at a speed of approximately 183 words per minute ( research conducted by Marc Brysbaert in 2019 ). To figure out how long it will take to read a specific piece of text aloud, you can divide the total number of words in the text by this average rate of 183 words per minute.

Of course, it’s important to note that talk time can vary depending on factors such as clarity of speech, pauses for emphasis, and use of visual aids. However, using this tool for converting the number of words to minutes can still provide a helpful guideline for planning and practicing your presentation. By having a better understanding of speech rates, you can ensure that your message is delivered effectively and efficiently.

III. Benefits of Using a Words to Time Converter

Time management in presentations.

Effective time management during presentations is crucial to ensure the audience remains engaged and the information is accurately conveyed. This is where our speaking time converter comes in handy. By using this tool, presenters can easily determine how many words they need to include in their presentation to stay within the allotted time frame.

Not only does it help with time management, but it also ensures that the pacing of the presentation is consistent, making it easier for the audience to follow. With the use of this tool, presenters can confidently deliver their presentations without the worry of running over time or rushing through it.

Estimated speech time for public speaking

Public speaking can be nerve-wracking, especially when you have too little or too much information to fill your time slot. You wonder only if there were an accurate public speaking time calculator available so that you could be able to allocate the appropriate amount of time to each section of your presentation, ensuring that you cover all the necessary points without rushing or going over time. 

Effective pacing is key in ensuring your message is delivered with clarity and impact.

Most public speakers target an average of 130-150 words per minute for their spoken content, meaning you should aim to limit your speaking time to roughly one minute per 130-150 words. While this may take some practice to achieve, the end result is a confident, well-timed delivery that keeps your audience engaged from start to finish.

Remember, in public speaking, less is often more—take your time to breathe and emphasize key points. Your audience will appreciate your thoughtful and measured approach. For that, you can use this tool and adjust your words to speech time.

Accurate estimations for audiobooks and podcasts

As more and more people turn to audiobooks and podcasts for their entertainment and information needs, accurate estimations of listening time have become more important than ever. After all, there’s nothing worse than settling in for a quick listen only to find yourself trapped in a story that goes on for hours longer than you anticipated.

That’s why it’s great to see publishers and podcast producers taking estimated reading time seriously, providing listeners with the information they need to choose the right content for their schedule. Whether you’re looking for a quick listen on your daily commute or a lengthy distraction for a lazy Sunday afternoon, accurate estimations using this speaking time calculator make it easier than ever to find the perfect content.

IV. Some Popular Speech Times

V. conclusion.

As the world becomes more fast-paced, time is a precious commodity. Determining how long your script will take to read, whether for a presentation or a video, can make a significant difference in engaging and retaining your audience’s attention.

That’s where our Words to Time Converter comes in handy. It’s a valuable tool for anyone working in various professions, from broadcast journalists to teachers to executives. No matter the industry, time is of the essence, and knowing how long your speech or presentation will take is crucial for effective communication.

Speech time calculator

Speech time: 0 minutes 0 seconds

Characters: 0

150 Words per minute

Speaking speed may vary depending on your style of speech. Test your speech rate first here .

Test your speech rate

To test your speech rate , read the sample text below out loud at your desired pace .

Click on the 'Start Speech Test' button , then read the provided text out loud . Once you finish reading, click on the 'Stop Speech Test' button .

Your speech rate (words per minute) will then appear . Use this value in the tool below to better estimate your reading time.

To improve the accuracy of this speech test, you can replace the text in the text area with your own sample. We do the Math for you.

Number of words: 0

Time elapsed: 0 second(s)

Your speech rate: NaN words per minute

How to use the speech time calculator?

This tool can help you estimate the speech time for your provided text . It can also test your speech rate by using a sample text . Let's start with the speech rate test.

Guide to the Speech Rate Test Tool

How to use the speech rate test.

As mentioned earlier, the speech rate test can estimate how many words per minute you can speak out loud . We provide a sample text consisting of 100 words. All you have to do is click the 'Start Speech Test' button , read the text at your desired pace , and then click on the 'Stop Speech Test' button . Our tool will estimate your speech rate for you . You can learn more about this estimation in the article below.

Can I use my own text for the Speech rate test?

Certainly, you can paste any text into the sample text area . The text can be shorter or longer and can be in a different language as well. Our tool will try to count the number of words which will be used for the calculation .

Where will my speech rate appear?

After clicking on the Stop Speech Test button, the estimated speech rate will appear above the button . The bold text will say something like: 'Your speech rate: 110 words per minute'. Our tool will also ask you if you want to import the estimated value into the speech time calculator tool.

Speech time calculator guide:

How can i use this tool.

To estimate the speech time of your text, paste the text into the first text area . Our tool will then count the number of words and do the math for the calculation . Your estimated speech time will appear in the stats box .

Can I adjust the speaking pace?

Certainly, you can adjust the speaking pace by clicking on one of the three buttons in the 'Speaking Speed' box. You can choose from 'Slow Speaking', 'Normal Speaking', and 'Fast Speaking' as predefined values. You are also free to drag the slider between 100 to 250 words per minute to set a custom pace .

Is this tool accurate?

We strive to be as accurate as possible. If you want to improve the accuracy of the speech time calculator, you can run the speech rate test first . This way, you can test your own speaking pace first.

Are the estimations for foreign languages correct?

The default values are for English. However, by running the speech rate test first, you can get your own estimation for any foreign language .

Did this tool help you?

We did this tool available to anyone for free . If we helped you don't forget to spread it to the world .

More about speech time

This free tool was created to help you estimate your speaking time . There are many reasons why you might need to know how long it takes to read your text out loud . The most typical situations include presentations and speeches, such as public speaking or conference speeches .

During presentations and speeches, there is often a lot to say but limited time . That's why our tool can be handy.

With our tool, you can adjust the amount of text you have prepared to fit your allotted time.

How can I improve my speeches?

If you want to improve your public speaking and conference skills , preparation and practice are key . Try to research your topic thoroughly and simplify all key information , memorizing it as well. This way, you will feel more confident and reduce the chance of stumbling over your words .

It's also important to know who your audience will be. Don't go too deep if your audience doesn't consist of experts .

To make your presentation more appealing , you can also add visuals, such as slides and images , to help deliver your message.

Always speak clearly and confidently . Choosing the right tone, volume, and pace is also crucial , as otherwise, you risk losing your audience's attention.

Try to engage with your audience. Ask them questions or choose interactive activities that keep them engaged with your speech.

Seek feedback by running a 'dry presentation' for your friends or family before the event. Ask for feedback to help you improve.

What is the ideal speech rate?

The ideal speech rate can vary depending on the situation, language, and topic of the speech. Generally, the average speech rate is somewhere between 120 to 150 words per minute . The key here is not to speak as fast as possible but to focus on the content itself . Try to play with your tone, voice, and volume . For certain speeches, a slower rate may be more effective .

Can this tool be used as a speech timer app?

Yes, this tool can be used as a speech timer app . You can paste your text into the 'Test Your Speech Rate' section, start the counter, and read the entire text. After reading, you can click 'Stop,' and the tool will show you how long it took.

Is my data safe?

The data you paste into our tool is not sent to the server . All processing is done in your browser. Therefore, we don't know or store what you paste into this tool. You can even load this page and disable your internet connection afterward, and it will still work.

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Script Timer & Words to Reading-Time Calculator

Wondering how long 100 words takes to read?  Or how long your finished speech or voice over recording will be?  This handy Voice Over & Speech Script Timer converts the number of words in your script, to how many minutes it will take to read.

Public speakers, speech writers, voice actors, poets, production companies, and narrators rely on this converter.

This calculates how long your speech, presentation, or voice over recording will be in hours, minutes, and seconds. This makes it easy to give estimate to your customers.  And because performances vary, you can adjust the timing to your reading speed.  So stop guessing! Instead work with accurate estimates!

• The Calculator

How long for a professional to read your script? Performances vary, but this handy converter will get you in the ballpark. You can even adjust it for reading speed. So stop guessing! Give accurate estimates and invoices to your customers!

PLEASE USE THE CHART BELOW ONLY AS A GUIDE - Rates vary greatly, due to context, vocal delivery, audience, etc. THIS CHART IS BASED ON: 12-point Arial (Helvetica), double-spaced, margin-to-margin.

Average Reading Speeds

If you read 1 word per second, then you will read:

• 30 words per half-minute
• 60 words per minute
• 3,600 words per hour
• 13 seconds per line (assuming 13 words per line)
• 273 seconds per page (assuming 13 words per line and 21 lines per page)

If you read 2 words per second, then you will read:

• 60 words per half-minute
• 120 words per minute
• 7,200 words per hour
• 6.5 seconds per line (assuming 13 words per line)
• 136 seconds per page (assuming 13 words per line and 21 lines per page)

If you read 3 words per second, then you will read:

• 90 words per half-minute
• 180 words per minute
• 10,800 words per hour
• 4 seconds per line (assuming 13 words per line)
• 91 seconds per page (assuming 13 words per line and 21 lines per page)

If you read 4 words per second, then you will read:

• 120 words per half-minute
• 240 words per minute
• 14,400 words per hour
• 3.2 seconds per line (assuming 13 words per line)
• 68 seconds per page (assuming 13 words per line and 21 lines per page)

If you read 5 words per second, then you will read:

• 150 words per half-minute
• 300 words per minute
• 18,000 words per hour
• 2.6 seconds per line (assuming 13 words per line)
• 54 seconds per page (assuming 13 words per line and 21 lines per page)
• Average number of lines per page: 21
• Average number of lines per 30-second spot: 7.5
• Average number of lines per 60-second spot: 15
• Average words per line: 13 (range is 8 to 18)
• Average words per page: 273 (range is 168 to 378)

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Voice over audiobooks.

Recording and narrating audiobooks is one of the popular services at Edge Studio. Our team consists of experienced narrators, engineers, directors, editors, and reviewers. With the help of professional sound production equipment, we create high-quality fiction and nonfiction titles in a creative working environment.

Audiobook narration here also comes with confidence; you’ll be assured of getting a sound that is engaging and pleasant to the ear. And more importantly, will immediately capture the attention of the audiobook reader!

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One of the main factors behind the commercial success of a movie, documentary, or other film, is a voice over. The soundtrack should be clear, without any additional noises, and most importantly – it should make the audience feel a certain way. The best solution to achieve all the above is to order professional voiceovers by the best movie voice over artists.

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As the first thing customers hear during the call, IVR is the face of the company. A well-written script and a well-voiced telephony helps create the image of a reliable business while seizing the customer’s attention.

What’s more, an IP telephony allows you to distribute a high volume of calls between operators, quickly redirect each caller to the right person, and automate customer support. For achieving the best result, it is better to use a professional voice over for your phone system. Your IP telephony will become an effective communication tool and present your company in its best light.

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A carefully selected voice actor is the key to an effective advertising campaign and leads to brand recognition and capturing the customer’s imagination. When selecting the best commercial voice over actors, Edge Studio strives to fully match the requirements set by the advertiser with a voice that perfectly matches the advertised product or service.

We understand how important voice over is in conveying your advertising message and have access to a vast pool of voice over talent to find you the perfect solution.

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A fitness video course, an animated series, a webinar, a product review on YouTube, a presentation, or a corporate training video – these are all examples of what can be voiced over in a professional recording studio. Sound is a key element for engaging your customer and delivering your message in the most effective way. A properly planned, recorded, and edited voice over for your video can become a powerful tool for advertisements, sales presentations, and all types of videos.

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Video game voice acting is one of the most important aspects of gameplay whether it’s narration, game instruction, or character dialogue.

Without a high-quality soundtrack, games lose their brilliance.

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At Edge Studio, we ensure every detail of your voice over project receives the best in professional audio recording and sound quality from any location in the world.

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Once we have a wrap on pre-production and audio recording, it’s time to head to post-production where the craft of sound design, editing, mixing, and mastering your project takes it from a rough cut to a pristine audio file with crisp clarity and dynamic sound.

At Edge Studio, our professional post-production team is made up of the most qualified and experienced audio people in the business. And, depending on your needs, our sound experts are committed to producing top-tier audio in post-production by using the latest technology and industry best practices.

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Words to Minutes

Welcome to the "Words to Minutes" tool! This tool allows you to estimate how long it will take you to read a piece of text out loud. Simply enter the number of words in your text and the tool will give you an estimate of the time it will take you to read it.

Speaking Time Calculator

Reading speed

Reading Time:

How words to minutes calculator works.

In this tool, you can convert words to time instantly and tells you how long does it take to read your speech. This tool only shows estimated text time to speak it may be very person by person.

• Input your speech number of words into box.
• Select your reading speech generally 130wpm average for most of people but you can change if you are a slow or fast reader.
• Now you can see estimated time of reading on green color.

Overview of minutes for a speech

(based on average reading speed)

Here are a few tips to help you get the most accurate estimate

• Read at a natural pace: Don't try to rush through the text or speak too slowly. Just read at a pace that feels comfortable and natural for you.
• Consider your speaking style: Some people speak more quickly or slowly than others. If you know that you tend to speak at a faster or slower pace than the average person, you may want to adjust the estimate accordingly.
• Take breaks as needed: If you're reading a long piece of text, it's okay to take breaks to rest your voice. Just remember to factor in any breaks when you're using the tool.

April 1, 2024

Does My Child Have a Speech Delay?

It’s hard to know whether a toddler needs help with early speech. Here are some tips and guidelines

By Yolanda F. Holt

The Good Brigade/Getty Images

This piece is part of Scientific American's column The Science of Parenting. To learn more, go here .

My son Grayson was about two and a half years old when his preschool teacher called me. A child development specialist had visited his classroom and had some concerns about his development.

As a speech-language pathologist , I had been carefully monitoring my twins’ development since they were born, so I was surprised to receive the call. Even so, I was terrified that I had missed some critical issue in his development. I wondered: What if the specialist misdiagnosed my child? I couldn’t decide which scenario was worse: if I had missed something myself, or if my child was about to be misidentified. As those thoughts raced through my head, I asked to have the specialist call me immediately. I listened as she described Grayson’s typically developing motor and social/emotional abilities. Then she described his speech as mostly not intelligible.

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The specialist was telling me she thought my son had a developmental delay in his speech and language.

My experience is not unique. Every day in the U.S., some parent will field this sort of unsettling phone call about their child.

As a speech-language pathologist, I understand the duty to connect with parents to share professional concerns. As a parent, I understand how scary and confusing these calls can be. My son was two and a half! How many children that age engage in intelligible conversations with a stranger? Fortunately for all of us there are some benchmarks we can use to help us understand typical speech and language development and where our children’s skills fall.

Hearing : In the U.S. and other industrialized nations, audiologists test hospital-delivered newborns before the babies go home. While the child is sleeping, the audiologist places a small probe (sort of like an earbud) in the baby’s ear. The probe sends a signal into the ear. That signal causes organs in the ear to vibrate and send the signal back to the device. This hearing test is safe, short and causes no discomfort to a sleeping newborn. If they fail, a second test is completed with the audiologist sometime later. If additional testing reveals a hearing difficulty the child will receive early interventions. These can include family training, baby hearing aids or perhaps a cochlear implant. Parent counseling is also a part of this process. Speech and hearing professionals will work with the family to ensure the child never misses out on early language development because of a hearing difficulty.

Listening : Between birth and 18 months, children listen to the sounds of the language(s) spoken around them and learn the rules to combine those sounds to make words. They learn where to add stress or pauses, or to get louder in case you weren’t listening. There are universal linguistic rules , including the general order of speech sound acquisition, word acquisition and sentence development that are relatively consistent across languages. If an infant does not respond to environmental sounds or the voice of the caregiver, or a 4–10-month-old baby does not coo, babble and make many different sounds, or a 12-month-old is not attempting to say words “mama, dada, bubu, uh-oh,” you should consider a hearing evaluation .

What’s interesting is that children in multilingual households (even children with developmental disorders) don’t mix up the rules for different languages. For example a child learning both Mandarin (a tone-based language where rises and falls in pitch change word meaning) and English (which has different rules to change word meaning) doesn’t apply the English rules to Mandarin. So the final pitch rise typically produced to indicate an English question—“Can I go?”—won’t be used to distinguish questions from statements in Mandarin.

Telling : Children learning multiple languages may demonstrate a longer learning period (they have more to learn) than monolingual language-learners. However, the quality and quantity of language output for typically developing mono- and multilingual children should be roughly equivalent. Parents who grew up in households where multiple languages were spoken may be familiar with this construct. If, however you are new to this experience you may find your multilingual child spends more time using one language over the other; or speaks to one caregiver exclusively in one language; or responds in English to questions posed in another language. All these behaviors are typical. Parents of mono- and multilingual children should reach out for help if their child (a) doesn’t respond in the expected manner in any language; (b) has trouble following simple instructions; or (c) does not name, tell, comment, request using from one to four words by the age of three.

Children learn to talk through practice, even if we sometimes don’t understand it. Based on what parents report to researchers , strangers typically understand about 25 percent of the words spoken by a one-year-old. For typically developing children speech intelligibility increases at a rate of around 25 percent each year so by age four most children should be understood by most people nearly 100 percent of the time. At two and a half, a child would be roughly 50 percent understandable to unfamiliar listeners.

Understanding : At two and a half, a child can understand between 100 to 500 words, but may only use 50 to 150 words . The child will arrange those words to communicate many ideas such as “all gone,” “dada go night-night” and other routine phrases. Over time and with practice the toddler’s receptive (listening) and expressive (telling) vocabulary increases exponentially. By age three vocabulary may grow to 1,000 words, and by age five the young pre-reader may have a vocabulary of around 10,000 words. Child speech and language development are roughly the same regardless of languages used, family income or family structure.

In our case Grayson’s speech was just below the developmental target for his age. As the specialist observed, he said lots of words; she just didn’t understand most of them. She made the responsible decision to call us and share her concerns. Although we were quite surprised, we listened to her concerns and discussed them as a family. We chose not to pursue early intervention. Instead, we continued to read and talk to Grayson and his twin every day. By age three, both twins were well above the developmental milestones expected for their age.

Our choice not to pursue therapy was based on several factors. As a speech pathologist, I had the training to provide support at home. As a result of frequent chronic ear infections, Grayson had ear tubes placed at 18 months. His ear infections could have negatively affected his language development, but still Grayson was not three months behind the milestones. Without this knowledge and the intervention we could provide at home, we would have accepted the referral.

In thinking about a child’s speech and language development, parents need to remember that hearing is foundational for both. Children develop language only by interacting with other people. For more information, the CDC provides a helpful checklist to assist parents in deciding when to ask their pediatrician for a speech and language referral. In general, if children are three months behind in one or more areas, a request for referral, to a speech language pathologist or child development specialist, is probably a good idea. Talk to your pediatrician. As parents we all want to provide the greatest opportunity for our children’s success. Creating a language-rich environment by talking with, reading with and listening to your child is one of the best ways to do that.

This is an opinion and analysis article, and the views expressed by the author or authors are not necessarily those of Scientific American .

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1947 - 2024

O.J. Simpson dead

Parents of Michigan school shooter sentenced

By Antoinette Radford and Maureen Chowdhury , CNN

Parents of school shooter sentenced to 10 to 15 years in prison. Here's what happened in court today

From CNN staff

The  parents of the teenager who killed four students  in the 2021 school shooting in Oxford, Michigan, were each sentenced to 10 to 15 years in prison Tuesday, weeks after being convicted of manslaughter.

James and Jennifer Crumbley, who each had faced up to 15 years in prison, have already been imprisoned for more than two years since their arrest in a Detroit warehouse days after the shooting. Though they were tried separately, their sentencing took place together in an Oakland County courtroom.

They are the first parents to be held criminally responsible for a mass school shooting committed by their child as the nation continues to grapple with the scourge of gunfire on campus and mass shootings.

Here's what everyone said in court today:

• Several family members of the four students killed in the shooting delivered emotional victim impact statements before the judge handed down the sentencing. The mother of Justin Shilling said "the ripple effects of both James and Jennifer's failures to act" to prevent their son from carrying out the deadly shooting " have devastated us all ." The father of Hana St. Juliana said the Crumbleys continue to deflect blame , adding his daughter's death "destroyed a large portion of my very soul."
• Jennifer Crumbley began her statement to the court on Tuesday by expressing her condolences to the victims and their families. She also said a previous statement that she made on the stand in her own defense  during her trial in Februar y was "completely misunderstood." Jennifer Crumbley previously said, “I’ve asked myself if I would have done anything differently, and I wouldn’t have.” Now, before sentencing, she said if she knew her son was capable of the crimes committed, her answer would have "absolutely been different."
• James Crumbley apologized to the victims , something he said he had not been able to do yet. He said he was not aware his son was planning a school shooting, and he asked the judge, "sentence me in a fair way."
• Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald urged the judge to exceed the sentencing guidelines for the Crumbleys and to consider the "devastating impact of their gross negligence that was foreseeable." In separate pre-sentencing memos, the attorneys for the parents asked for them  to be sentenced  to less than five years in prison.
• Judge Cheryl Matthews said the decision should be a deterrent to try to stop school shootings in the future. She pointed to James and Jennifer Crumbley's lack of action, saying, “These convictions confirm repeated acts or lack of acts that could have halted an oncoming runaway train."

Crumbley case sets a precedent on who can be held accountable for a mass shooting

From CNN's Celina Tebor

The historic trials, and stunning verdicts, of James and Jennifer Crumbley  tested the limits of who can be held responsible for a mass shooting.

The prosecution of both parents, and an uptick in other criminal prosecutions and civil lawsuits tied to mass shootings, indicates attorneys are increasingly seeking to hold responsible people — and companies — who didn’t pull the trigger .

Prosecutors over the past few years have been slowly, but steadily, expanding the notion of who can be held accountable for a mass shooting, CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig, a former federal and state prosecutor, said last month.

While he cautioned each case rests on its own merits, "we’ve seen groundbreaking prosecutions of parents and security personnel," he said, "and I’d expect that trend to continue."

The question remains whether prosecution of non-shooters will be effective in reducing the number of mass shootings in the United States. But undoubtedly, it has expanded prosecutors’ tool boxes, according to Ekow Yankah, law professor at the University of Michigan.

“It gives different prosecutors something to aim at – it gives them a new theory, it gives them something to try,” he told CNN. “It gives prosecutors who are frustrated, are facing a devastating crime, a mass shooting that’s hurt their community, some set of actions that they can take.”

Read about some other high-profile prosecutions of non-shooters in recent years.

Prosecutor says she is disappointed James and Jennifer Crumbley did not express remorse

From CNN’s Nicki Brown 

The lead prosecutor in James and Jennifer Crumbley's criminal trials said it was "disappointing" that the parents didn't express remorse.

"Feeling bad is natural, and we don't dispute that they feel bad ... that's not what's important to victims of crime," Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald said to reporters after the Crumbleys' sentencing Tuesday. "What they want and need most of all is remorse, which means acknowledgment of the wrongdoing and some sort of reconciliation or apology for that — and that didn't come."

The prosecutor said she didn't think that the case would set a precedent for parents of other school shooters.

"There's a difference between precedent-setting and rare, and this is really a rare set of facts, it really is," McDonald said. 

"Most of us know that you have to exercise reasonable care at least to prevent other people from the dangers that you know are foreseeable," she added.

She said her team did the "absolute best" they could, and the victim's families know that.

"It's really hard ... to remark about how hard we work and how hard it's been when you're looking in the eyes of these parents every day, who get up in unbelievable pain and grief and see this play out every day and they still go on," she said. "And so, my focus is there."

James and Jennifer Crumbley each sentenced to 10 to 15 years in prison

James and Jennifer Crumbley, the parents of the teenager who killed four students in a 2021 school shooting in Oxford, Michigan, were each sentenced Tuesday to 10 to 15 years in prison, respectively, weeks after they were convicted of manslaughter.

They will receive credit for 858 days already served.

Sentence for Crumbleys should be a deterrent, judge says

From CNN's Elise Hammond

The judge presiding over the sentencing of James and Jennifer Crumbley said the decision should be a deterrent to try to stop school shootings in the future.

"Opportunity knocked over and over again, louder and louder, and was ignored," Judge Cheryl Matthews said. "No one answered and these two people should have and sure didn’t."

She said she is "aware of my job in this situation” and promised not to be “swayed by public opinion” when handing down the sentencing decision.

Talking to the families in the courtroom, Matthews said she could never understand the pain they are experiencing, but reassured them, “I saw what you saw and I heard what you heard” during the trials.

Prosecutor urges judge to consider the "devastating impact" of the Crumbleys' "gross negligence"

From CNN's Nicki Brown

Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald urged Judge Cheryl Matthews to exceed the sentencing guidelines for James and Jennifer Crumbley, asking the judge to consider the "devastating impact of their gross negligence that was foreseeable."

"I want to be clear, remorse does not sound like, 'I feel really bad.' I'm sure they do. I don't dispute they feel bad, I don't dispute they have grief. That's not the kind of remorse and accountability these victims are looking for," McDonald said in court Tuesday.

She continued, addressing the judge:

"When fashioning a sentence, it is absolutely critical that you listen and consider the impact of what that gross negligence caused. So we're asking you to exceed the guidelines because I believe all of the factors pursuant to the case law, with the necessary consideration of the impact of these crimes, justifies you to do. We're asking you, the people are asking you, to consider the devastating impact of their gross negligence that was foreseeable."

James Crumbley apologizes to the families of his son's victims

From CNN's Antoinette Radford

James Crumbley, the father of Michigan school shooter Ethan Crumbley, addressed the courtroom, opening his statement by apologizing to the victims, something he said he had not been able to do yet.

"I want to say I can't imagine the pain and agony ... for the families that have lost their children and what they are experiencing and what they are going through. As a parent, our biggest fear is losing our child or our children, and to lose a child is unimaginable. My heart is really broken for everybody involved," he said.

"I really want the families of Madisyn Baldwin, Hana St Juliana, Tate Myre and Justin Shilling to know how truly sorry I am, and how devastated I was when I heard what happened to them," Crumbley said.

Crumbley added that he was not aware his son was planning a school shooting, and he asked Judge Cheryl Matthews to "sentence me in a fair way."

Jennifer Crumbley says previous statement made in court was misinterpreted

From CNN's Maureen Chowdhury

Jennifer Crumbley began her statement to the court by expressing her condolences to the victims and their families.

"I sit here today to express my deepest sorrows for the families of Hana, Tate, Madisyn, Justin and to all those affected on November 30, 2021," she said.

Crumbley said that a previous statement made on the stand was "completely misunderstood."

When she took the stand in her own defense during her trial in Februar y, she had said, “I’ve asked myself if I would have done anything differently, and I wouldn’t have.”

On Tuesday, Crumbley said that she did not foresee the actions of her son and therefore would not have done anything different, and that is how she interpreted the question.

"With the benefit of hindsight and information I have now, my answer would be drastically different," she said.

Crumbley added that if she knew her son was capable of the crimes committed, her answer would have "absolutely been different."

 Father of Hana St. Juliana says Crumbleys "choose to blame everyone but themselves"

James and Jennifer Crumbley continue to deflect blame, the father of a victim of the 2021 Oxford High School shooting said at the Crumbleys' sentencing Tuesday.

"The defendants, through their choices, through their indifference and gross negligence, enabled their son to murder my daughter Hana and three other children," Steve St. Juliana, the father of Hana St. Juliana, said in a victim impact statement Tuesday.

"They chose to stay quiet. They chose to ignore the warning signs. And now, as we've heard through all of the objections, they continue to choose to blame everyone but themselves," he said.

Steve St. Juliana said his daughter's death "destroyed a large portion of my very soul."

"I will never think back fondly on her high school and college graduations. I will never walk her down the aisle as she begins the journey of starting her own family. I am forever denied the chance to hold her or her future children in my arms," he added.

St. Juliana said his position on the Crumbleys' sentencing evolved throughout the trial as the defendants' "defiance" increased. "Hana, Madisyn, Tate, and Justin are the ones who have lost everything — not the defendants," he said before requesting the parents receive the maximum possible sentence.

Buck Myre, the father of victim Tate Myre, gave his impact statement following Steve St. Juliana. He was the last person to give an impact statement.

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Ukraine's Zelenskiy urges allies to act on military aid promises

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy urged his country's allies to make good on their promises of military aid on Thursday, particularly in the form of desperately needed air defence systems as Russia scales up its air strikes.

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Trump’s bizarre, vindictive incoherence has to be heard in full to be believed

Excerpts from his speeches do not do justice to Trump’s smorgasbord of vendettas, non sequiturs and comparisons to famous people

Donald Trump’s speeches on the 2024 campaign trail so far have been focused on a laundry list of complaints, largely personal, and an increasingly menacing tone.

He’s on the campaign trail less these days than he was in previous cycles – and less than you’d expect from a guy with dedicated superfans who brags about the size of his crowds every chance he gets. But when he has held rallies, he speaks in dark, dehumanizing terms about migrants, promising to vanquish people crossing the border. He rails about the legal battles he faces and how they’re a sign he’s winning, actually. He tells lies and invents fictions. He calls his opponent a threat to democracy and claims this election could be the last one.

Trump’s tone, as many have noted, is decidedly more vengeful this time around, as he seeks to reclaim the White House after a bruising loss that he insists was a steal. This alone is a cause for concern, foreshadowing what the Trump presidency redux could look like. But he’s also, quite frequently, rambling and incoherent, running off on tangents that would grab headlines for their oddness should any other candidate say them.

Journalists rightly chose not to broadcast Trump’s entire speeches after 2016, believing that the free coverage helped boost the former president and spread lies unchecked. But now there’s the possibility that stories about his speeches often make his ideas appear more cogent than they are – making the case that, this time around, people should hear the full speeches to understand how Trump would govern again.

Watching a Trump speech in full better shows what it’s like inside his head: a smorgasbord of falsehoods, personal and professional vendettas, frequent comparisons to other famous people, a couple of handfuls of simple policy ideas, and a lot of non sequiturs that veer into barely intelligible stories.

Curiously, Trump tucks the most tangible policy implications in at the end. His speeches often finish with a rundown of what his second term in office could bring, in a meditation-like recitation the New York Times recently compared to a sermon. Since these policies could become reality, here’s a few of those ideas:

Instituting the death penalty for drug dealers.

Creating the “Trump Reciprocal Trade Act”: “If China or any other country makes us pay 100% or 200% tariff, which they do, we will make them pay a reciprocal tariff of 100% or 200%. In other words, you screw us and we’ll screw you.”

Indemnifying all police officers and law enforcement officials.

Rebuilding cities and taking over Washington DC, where, he said in a recent speech, there are “beautiful columns” put together “through force of will” because there were no “Caterpillar tractors” and now those columns have graffiti on them.

Issuing an executive order to cut federal funding for any school pushing critical race theory, transgender and other inappropriate racial, sexual or political content.

Moving to one-day voting with paper ballots and voter ID.

This conclusion is the most straightforward part of a Trump speech and is typically the extent of what a candidate for office would say on the campaign trail, perhaps with some personal storytelling or mild joking added in.

But it’s also often the shortest part.

Trump’s tangents aren’t new, nor is Trump’s penchant for elevating baseless ideas that most other presidential candidates wouldn’t, like his promotion of injecting bleach during the pandemic.

But in a presidential race among two old men that’s often focused on the age of the one who’s slightly older, these campaign trail antics shed light on Trump’s mental acuity, even if people tend to characterize them differently than Joe Biden’s. While Biden’s gaffes elicit serious scrutiny, as writers in the New Yorker and the New York Times recently noted, we’ve seemingly become inured to Trump’s brand of speaking, either skimming over it or giving him leeway because this has always been his shtick.

Trump, like Biden, has confused names of world leaders (but then claims it’s on purpose ). He has also stumbled and slurred his words. But beyond that, Trump’s can take a different turn. Trump has described using an “iron dome” missile defense system as “ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. They’ve only got 17 seconds to figure this whole thing out. Boom. OK. Missile launch. Whoosh. Boom.”

These tangents can be part of a tirade, or they can be what one can only describe as complete nonsense.

During this week’s Wisconsin speech, which was more coherent than usual, Trump pulled out a few frequent refrains: comparing himself, incorrectly , to Al Capone, saying he was indicted more than the notorious gangster; making fun of the Georgia prosecutor Fani Willis’s first name (“It’s spelled fanny like your ass, right? Fanny. But when she became DA, she decided to add a little French, a little fancy”).

He made fun of Biden’s golfing game, miming how Biden golfs, perhaps a ding back at Biden for poking Trump about his golf game. Later, he called Biden a “lost soul” and lamented that he gets to sit at the president’s desk. “Can you imagine him sitting at the Resolute Desk? What a great desk,” Trump said.

One muddled addition in Wisconsin involved squatters’ rights, a hot topic related to immigration now: “If you have illegal aliens invading your home, we will deport you,” presumably meaning the migrant would be deported instead of the homeowner. He wanted to create a federal taskforce to end squatting, he said.

“Sounds like a little bit of a weird topic but it’s not, it’s a very bad thing,” he said.

These half-cocked remarks aren’t new; they are a feature of who Trump is and how he communicates that to the public, and that’s key to understanding how he is as a leader.

The New York Times opinion writer Jamelle Bouie described it as “something akin to the soft bigotry of low expectations”, whereby no one expected him to behave in an orderly fashion or communicate well.

Some of these bizarre asides are best seen in full, like this one about Biden at the beach in Trump’s Georgia response to the State of the Union:

“Somebody said he looks great in a bathing suit, right? And you know, when he was in the sand and he was having a hard time lifting his feet through the sand, because you know sand is heavy, they figured three solid ounces per foot, but sand is a little heavy, and he’s sitting in a bathing suit. Look, at 81, do you remember Cary Grant? How good was Cary Grant, right? I don’t think Cary Grant, he was good. I don’t know what happened to movie stars today. We used to have Cary Grant and Clark Gable and all these people. Today we have, I won’t say names, because I don’t need enemies. I don’t need enemies. I got enough enemies. But Cary Grant was, like – Michael Jackson once told me, ‘The most handsome man, Trump, in the world.’ ‘Who?’ ‘Cary Grant.’ Well, we don’t have that any more, but Cary Grant at 81 or 82, going on 100. This guy, he’s 81, going on 100. Cary Grant wouldn’t look too good in a bathing suit, either. And he was pretty good-looking, right?”

Or another Hollywood-related bop, inspired by a rant about Willis and special prosecutor Nathan Wade’s romantic relationship:

“It’s a magnificent love story, like Gone With the Wind. You know Gone With the Wind, you’re not allowed to watch it any more. You know that, right? It’s politically incorrect to watch Gone With the Wind. They have a list. What were the greatest movies ever made? Well, Gone With the Wind is usually number one or two or three. And then they have another list you’re not allowed to watch any more, Gone With the Wind. You tell me, is our country screwed up?”

He still claims to have “done more for Black people than any president other than Abraham Lincoln” and also now says he’s being persecuted more than Lincoln and Andrew Jackson:

“ All my life you’ve heard of Andrew Jackson, he was actually a great general and a very good president. They say that he was persecuted as president more than anybody else, second was Abraham Lincoln. This is just what they said. This is in the history books. They were brutal, Andrew Jackson’s wife actually died over it.”

You not only see the truly bizarre nature of Trump’s speeches when viewing them in full, but you see the sheer breadth of his menace and animus toward those who disagree with him.

His comments especially toward migrants have grown more dehumanizing. He has said they are “poisoning the blood” of the US – a nod at Great Replacement Theory, the far-right conspiracy that the left is orchestrating migration to replace white people. Trump claimed the people coming in were “prisoners, murderers, drug dealers, mental patients and terrorists, the worst they have”. He has repeatedly called migrants “animals”.

“Democrats said please don’t call them ‘animals’. I said, no, they’re not humans, they’re animals,” he said during a speech in Michigan this week.

“In some cases they’re not people, in my opinion,” he said during his March appearance in Ohio. “But I’m not allowed to say that because the radical left says that’s a terrible thing to say. “These are animals, OK, and we have to stop it,” he said.

And he has turned more authoritarian in his language, saying he would be a “dictator on day one” but then later said it would only be for a day. He’s called his political enemies “vermin”: “We pledge to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country,” he said in New Hampshire in late 2023.

At a speech in March in Ohio about the US auto industry he claimed there would be a “bloodbath” if he lost, which some interpreted as him claiming there would be violence if he loses the election.

Trump’s campaign said later that he meant the comment to be specific to the auto industry, but now the former president has started saying Biden created a “border bloodbath” and the Republican National Committee created a website to that effect as well.

It’s tempting to find a coherent line of attack in Trump speeches to try to distill the meaning of a rambling story. And it’s sometimes hard to even figure out the full context of what he’s saying, either in text or subtext and perhaps by design, like the “bloodbath” comment or him saying there wouldn’t be another election if he doesn’t win this one.

But it’s only in seeing the full breadth of the 2024 Trump speech that one can truly understand what kind of president he could become if he won the election.

“It’s easiest to understand the threat that Trump poses to American democracy most clearly when you see it for yourself,” Susan B Glasser wrote in the New Yorker. “Small clips of his craziness can be too easily dismissed as the background noise of our times.”

If you ask Trump himself, of course, these are just examples that Trump is smart.

“The fake news will say, ‘Oh, he goes from subject to subject.’ No, you have to be very smart to do that. You got to be very smart. You know what it is? It’s called spot-checking. You’re thinking about something when you’re talking about something else, and then you get back to the original. And they go, ‘Holy shit. Did you see what he did?’ It’s called intelligence.”

• Donald Trump
• US elections 2024
• Republicans
• US politics

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Middle East latest: Iran says its need to 'punish' Israel 'may have been obviated' had UN condemned embassy strike

Iran's mission to the United Nations says the Security Council should have condemned the strike on its embassy in Syria last week. Scroll through live updates while you listen to our latest podcast on how tensions are escalating in the region.

Thursday 11 April 2024 17:59, UK

• Israel-Hamas war
• Biden says US support for Israel 'ironclad' on Iran
• Iranian threats against Israel 'unacceptable', PM says
• Alistair Bunkall : Attack from Iran on Israel reported to be imminent
• More than 100 Israeli conscripts 'refuse to serve on Gaza border'
• Three sons of Hamas leader killed in strike | IDF gives details of attack
• Explained: Who is Ismail Haniyeh?
• Watch: Moment he is told his family has been killed
• Alex Crawford report : Yemeni fishermen face threat of Houthi attack - but on Gaza they are firmly behind the militants
• Live reporting by Jess Sharp and (earlier) Bhvishya Patel

By Duncan Gardham, security journalist

A Moroccan asylum seeker murdered a "defenceless" pensioner in a rampage motivated by the conflict in Gaza, a court has heard.

Ahmed Ali Alid, 45, attempted to kill his housemate, Javed Nouri, a former Muslim who converted to Christianity, because he believed Nouri was an apostate - meaning someone who has abandoned their religion, Teesside Crown Court was told.

He then went out onto the streets of Hartlepool where he encountered Terence Carney, 70, who was out for a morning walk, attacking him and stabbing him to death, the jury heard.

Following his arrest, Alid admitted being responsible for the attempted murder of Nouri and the murder of Carney.

However, he is now on trial after pleading not guilty to both charges and to assaulting two female police officers who had interviewed him after his arrest.

Alid told police the attacks on the two men on 15 October last year, a week after the Hamas attacks on Israel, were "because of the conflict in Gaza" and to remove "Zionists" from Palestine, the court heard.

He said he would have killed others if he had not been stopped and was prepared to be a martyr, the jury was told.

You can read more on this story here ...

Hundreds of ultra-Orthodox Jews have gathered in Jerusalem today, protesting against mandatory enlistment in Israel's military. 

The protests came after Israel's Supreme Court ruled that government subsidies for ultra-Orthodox men of enlistment age would expire. 

Most Jewish men are required to serve nearly three years in the military, followed by years of reserve duty. 

Jewish women serve two mandatory years.

But the politically powerful ultra-Orthodox, who make up roughly 13% of Israeli society, have traditionally received exemptions while studying full-time in religious seminaries.

There are more than 60,000 ultra-Orthodox men of enlistment age who are studying rather than serving in the military.

 US President Joe Biden has said his country's support for Israel is "ironclad" after reports an Iranian attack is imminent.

Iran had promised to retaliate after Israel was widely blamed for killing a top Iranian commander in Damascus, Syria, last week. 

It has led to fears the Israel-Gaza war could escalate to a wider Middle East conflict.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did nothing to allay concerns when he said his forces were preparing for scenarios in other areas.  

On the Sky News Daily, Niall Paterson speaks to our Middle East correspondent Ali Bunkall about how ready Israel is for any attacks by Iran and what its next moves might be. 

Plus, retired air vice-marshal Sean Bell, who is a military analyst, details Iran's military capabilities and what form an attack by Tehran might take.

Israel has claimed to have killed one of Hamas's financiers in Gaza.

The Israel Defence Forces said Nasser Yakob Jabber Nasser was "responsible for funding a significant part of Hamas's military activities" in the southern Gaza city of Rafah. 

"Last December, he transferred hundreds of thousands of dollars to Hamas for its military activities," it said in a Telegram post .

Hamas has not publicly commented on the claim. 

It comes after the Hamas-affiliated news agency Shehab said three of the militant group's sons were killed in a strike earlier today. 

Sky News contacted the IDF over the claim, but it could not confirm the reports.

The UN Security Council should have condemned the strike on the Iranian embassy in Syria, Iran's mission to the United Nations has said. 

If the council had done so, the "imperative for Iran" to retaliate to the attack could have been avoided, it added. 

The embassy in Damascus was struck last week in an attack that killed two Iranian generals and six other Iranian military officers. 

Israel has been widely blamed for the strike, with Iran vowing to take revenge on the country. 

Israel has not publicly commented on the attack. 

"Had the UN Security Council condemned the Zionist regime's reprehensible act of aggression on our diplomatic premises in Damascus and subsequently brought to justice its perpetrators, the imperative for Iran to punish this rogue regime might have been obviated," Tehran's mission to the UN said on X. 

Iran uses the term "Zionist regime" to refer to Israel. 

The families of three British aid workers who were killed in an Israeli drone strike in Gaza have paid tribute following the repatriation of their bodies to the UK.

James Kirby, James "Jim" Henderson and John Chapman were among the seven World Central Kitchen (WCK) workers who died in the attack last Monday.

The strike, which the Israel Defence Forces said was a "serious mistake", prompted condemnation from London and other Western capitals.

Mr Kirby's family said he will be "missed by so many", adding they were "overwhelmed by the support shown".

"As a family we are shocked and saddened by the sudden death of our beautiful James, who we lost on 2 April," they said.

Mr Henderson's family described him as a "kind, compassionate, loyal and considerate man, our shining light".

"We as a family are deeply shocked, saddened and upset at the untimely tragic death of Jim," they said.

The family of Mr Chapman said: "John was an incredible husband, father, brother, son and friend who will be missed deeply and he was an inspiration to many.

"We are devastated by this unbearable loss but are hugely relieved to have John home."

With reports of an imminent attack on Israel by Iran, our international affairs editor Dominic Waghorn says this is a "very dangerous moment for the Middle East".

He says just as we thought the risk of a regional war were subsiding "it has now come back".

Waghorn says the "Iranians throughout this war have avoided escalating wherever they can" and "don't want a war" but "they feel they have to retaliate".

"The assumption is it will be a calibrated well-planned retaliation. It won't go too far but it will go far enough to try and restore their deterrence but it won't go too far as to plunge the region into all out conflict," he explains.

He notes whatever decision Iran takes "it's war and things don't necessarily go to plan".

"This is a very dangerous moment for the Middle East," he adds.

British and other foreign diplomats in Israel have been advised to stock up on essential items in anticipation of an Iranian attack.

The guidance, which has been issued to families in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, also recommends carrying radios when out and about, in case phone networks are disrupted.

Israel is currently on alert for an Iranian retaliation following a suspected Israeli airstrike on Iran's embassy in Syria earlier this month. 

German airline Lufthansa has also suspended flights to the Iranian capital, Tehran.

Iranian threats to carry out a missile strike against Israel are "unacceptable", Rishi Sunak has said. 

Tehran has vowed to retaliate after two of its top generals were killed in an airstrike on its consulate in Syria earlier this month that the US military believes was carried out by Israel.

Although Israel has not commented on the attack, Iran's leader the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the country "must be punished and it shall be".

Speaking today, Mr Sunak condemned the Ayatollah's comments, saying they were "unacceptable".

He said: "We, like the Americans, fully support Israel's right to defend itself against that."

Mr Sunak added that Britain had already "highlighted Iran as a significant risk to regional security" and taken steps to protect the UK from threats from Tehran.

Yesterday, Joe Biden said that his country's commitment to Israel's security in the face of Iranian threats was "ironclad".

Germany's foreign minister has called her Iranian counterpart  to urge "maximum restraint" to avoid further escalation. 

In a statement on X, Germany's foreign office said Annalena Baerbock had spoken to Hossein Amirabdollahian about the "tense situation in the Middle East today".

"Avoiding further regional escalation must be in everyone’s interest. We urge all actors in the region to act responsibly and exercise maximum restraint," the statement read.

For context : Conflict has spread across the Middle East since the war in Gaza, with Iran-backed groups declaring support for those waging attacks from Lebanon, Yemen and Iraq.

Tehran has avoided direct confrontation with Israel or the US, while declaring support for its allies.

But on 1 April, suspected Israeli warplanes bombed Iran's embassy in Syria and Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Israel "must be punished".

Israel has not claimed responsibility for the 1 April attack.

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How Tesla Planted the Seeds for Its Own Potential Downfall

Elon musk’s factory in china saved his company and made him ultrarich. now, it may backfire..

This transcript was created using speech recognition software. While it has been reviewed by human transcribers, it may contain errors. Please review the episode audio before quoting from this transcript and email [email protected] with any questions.

From “The New York Times,” I’m Katrin Bennhold. This is “The Daily.”

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Today, the story of how China gave Tesla a lifeline that saved the company — and how that lifeline has now given China the tools to beat Tesla at its own game. My colleague, Mara Hvistendahl, explains.

It’s Tuesday, April 9.

So, Mara, you’ve spent the past four months investigating Elon Musk and his ties to China through his company, Tesla. Tell us why.

Well, a lot of American companies are heavily invested in China, but Tesla’s kind of special. As my colleagues and I started talking to sources, we realized that many people felt that China played a crucial role in rescuing the company at a critical moment when it was on the brink of failure and that China helps account for Tesla’s success, for making it the most valuable car company in the world today, and for making Elon Musk ultra rich.

That’s super intriguing. So maybe take us back to the beginning. When does the story start?

So the story starts in the mid 2010s. Tesla had been this company that had all this hype around it. But —

A lot of people were shocked by Tesla’s earnings report. Not only did they make a lot less money than expected, they’re also making a lot less cars.

Tesla was struggling.

The delivery of the Model 3 has been delayed yet again.

Tesla engineers are saying 40 percent of the parts made at the Fremont factory need reworking.

At the time, they made their cars in Fremont, California, and they were facing production delays.

Tesla is confirming that Cal/OSHA is investigating the company over concerns over workplace safety.

Elon Musk has instituted a kind of famously grueling work culture at the factory, and that did not go over well with California labor law.

The federal government now has four active investigations involving Tesla.

They were clashing with regulators.

The National Transportation Safety Board will investigate a second crash involving Tesla’s autopilot system.

Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk — friends are really concerned about him. That’s what Musk told “The New York Times.”

And by 2018, he was having all of these crises.

According to “The Times,” Musk choked up multiple times and struggled to maintain his composure during an hour-long interview about turmoil at his electric car company, Tesla.

So all of this kind of converged to put immense pressure on him to do something.

And where does China come in?

Well, setting up a factory in China, in a way, would solve some of these problems for Musk. Labor costs were lower. Workers couldn’t unionize there. China provided access to this steady supply of cheaper parts. So Elon Musk was set on going to China. But first, Tesla and Musk wanted to change a key policy in China.

Hmm, what kind of policy?

So they wanted China to adopt a policy that was aimed at lowering car emissions. And the idea was that it would be modeled after a similar policy in California that had benefited Tesla there.

OK, so explain what that policy actually did. And how did it benefit Tesla?

So California had this system called the Zero-Emission Vehicle program. And that was designed to encourage companies to make cleaner cars, including electric vehicles. And they did that by setting pollution targets. So companies that made a lot of clean cars got credits. And then companies that failed to meet those targets, that produced too many gas-guzzling cars, would have to buy credits from the cleaner companies.

So California is trying to incentivize companies to make cleaner cars by forcing the traditional carmakers to pay cleaner car makers, which basically means dirtier car makers are effectively subsidizing cleaner cars.

Yes, that’s right. And Tesla, as a company that came along just making EVs, profited immensely from this system. And in its early years, when Tesla was really struggling to stay afloat, the money that it earned from selling credits in California to polluting car companies were absolutely crucial, so much so that the company structured a lot of its lobbying efforts around this system, around preserving these credits. And we talked to a former regulator who said as much.

How much money are we talking about here?

So from 2008, when Tesla unveiled its first car, up until the end of last year, Tesla made almost $4 billion by selling credits in California.

Wow. So Musk basically wants China to recreate this California-style program, which was incredibly lucrative for Tesla, there. And they’re basically holding that up as a condition to their building a factory in China.

Right. And at this point in the story, an interesting alliance emerges. Because it wasn’t just Tesla that wanted this emissions program in China. It was also environmentalists from California who had seen the success of the program up close in their own state.

If you go back to that period, to the early 2010s, I was living in China at the time in Beijing and Shanghai. And it was incredibly polluted. We called it airpocalypse at times. I had my first child in China at that point. And as soon as it was safe to put a baby mask on her, we put a little baby mask on her. There were days where people just would try to avoid going outside because it was so polluted. And some of the pollution was actually wafting across the Pacific Ocean to California.

Wow, so California is experiencing that Chinese air pollution firsthand and, in a way, has a direct stake in lowering it.

That’s right. So Governor Jerry Brown, for example — this became kind of his signature issue, was working with China to clean up the environment, in part by exporting this emission scheme. It was also an era of a lot more US-China cooperation. China was seen as absolutely crucial to combating climate change.

So you had all these groups working to get this California emissions scheme exported to China — and the governor’s office and environmental groups and Tesla. And it worked. In 2017, China did adopt a system that was modeled after California’s.

It’s pretty incredible. So California basically exports its emissions-trading system to China, which I imagine at the time was a big win for Californian environmentalists. But it was also a big win for Tesla.

It was definitely a big win for Tesla. And we know that in just a few years Tesla, made almost $1 billion from the emissions-trading program he helped lobby for in China.

So Elon Musk goes on, builds a factory in China. And he does so in Shanghai, where he builds a close relationship with the top official in the city, who actually is now the number-two official in all of China, Li Qiang.

So according to Chinese state media, Elon Musk actually proposed building the factory in two years, which would be fast. And Li came back and proposed that they do it in one year, which — things go up really quickly in China. But even for China, this is incredibly fast. And they broke ground on the factory in January 2019. And by the end of the year, cars were rolling off the line. So then in January 2020, Musk was able to get up on stage in Shanghai and unveil the first Chinese-made Teslas.

Really want to thank the Tesla team and the government officials that have been really helpful in making this happen.

Next to him on stage is Tesla’s top lobbyist who helped push through some of these changes.

Thank you. Yeah, everybody can tell Elon’s super, super happy today.

[SPEAKING CHINESE]

And she says —

Music, please.

Cue the music. [UPBEAT MUSIC]

And he actually broke into dance. He was so happy, a kind of awkward dance.

[UPBEAT MUSIC]

And what is the factory like?

The Shanghai factory is huge. 20,000 people work there. Tesla’s factories around the world tend to be pretty large, but the Shanghai workers work more shifts. And when Tesla set up in China, Chinese banks ended up offering Tesla $1.5 billion in low-interest loans. They got a preferential tax rate in Shanghai.

This deal was so generous that one auto industry official we talked to said that a government minister had actually lamented that they were giving Tesla too much. And it is an incredibly productive factory. It’s now the flagship export factory for Tesla.

So it opens in late 2019. And that’s, of course, the time when the pandemic hits.

Yes. I mean, you might think that this is really poor timing for Elon Musk. But it didn’t quite turn out that way. In fact, Tesla’s factory in Shanghai was closed for only around two weeks, whereas the factory in Fremont was closed for around two months.

That’s a big difference.

Yes, and it really, really mattered to Elon Musk. If you can think back to 2020, you might recall that he was railing against California politicians for closing his factory. In China, the factory stayed open. Workers were working around the clock. And Elon Musk said on a podcast —

China rocks, in my opinion.

— China rocks.

There’s a lot of smart, hardworking people. And they’re not entitled. They’re not complacent, whereas I see —

We’ve seen a lot of momentum and enthusiasm for electric vehicles, stocks, and Tesla certainly leading the charge.

Tesla’s stock price kept going up.

Tesla has become just the fifth company to reach a trillion-dollar valuation. The massive valuation happened after Tesla’s stock price hit an all-time high of more than $1,000.

So this company that had just a few years earlier been on the brink of failure, looking to China for a lifeline, was suddenly riding high. And —

Tesla is now the most valuable car company in the world. It’s worth more than General Motors, Ford, Fiat, Chrysler.

By the summer, it had become the most valuable car company in the world.

Guess what? Elon Musk is now the world’s richest man.

“Forbes” says he’s worth more than $255 billion.

And Elon Musk’s wealth is tied up in Tesla stock. And in the following year, he became the wealthiest man in the world.

So you have this emission trading system, which we discussed and which, in part, thanks to Tesla, is now established in China. It’s bringing in money to Tesla. And now this Shanghai factory is continuing to produce cars for Tesla in the middle of the pandemic. So China really paid off for Tesla. But what was in it for China?

Well, China wasn’t doing this for charity.

What Chinese leaders really wanted was to turn their fledgling electric vehicle industry into a global powerhouse. And they figured that Tesla was the ticket to get there. And that’s precisely what happened.

We’ll be right back.

So, Mara, you’ve just told us the story of how Elon Musk used China to turn Tesla into the biggest car maker in the world and himself — at one point — into the richest man in the world. Now I want to understand the other side of this story. How did China use Tesla?

Well, Tesla basically became a catfish for China’s EV industry.

A catfish, what do you mean by that?

It’s a term from the business world. And, essentially, it means a super aggressive fish that makes the other fish in the pond swim faster. And by bringing in this super competitive, aggressive foreign company into China, which at that point had these fledgling EV companies, Chinese leaders hoped to spur the upstart Chinese EV makers to up their game.

So you’re saying that at this point, China actually already had a number of smaller EV companies, which many people in the West may not even be aware of, these smaller fish in the pond that you were referring to.

Yes, there were a lot of them. They were often locally based. Like, one would be strong in one city, and one would be strong in another city. And Chinese leaders saw that they needed to become more competitive in order to thrive.

And China had tried for decades to build up this traditional car industry by bringing in foreign companies to set up joint ventures. They had really had their sights set on building a strong car industry, and it didn’t really work. I mean, how many traditional Chinese car company brands can you name?

Exactly none.

Yeah, right. So going back to the aughts and the 2010s, they had this advantage that many Chinese hadn’t yet been hooked on gas-guzzling cars. There were still many people who were buying their first car ever. So officials had all these levers they could pull to try to encourage or try to push people’s behavior in a certain direction.

And their idea was to try to ensure that when people went to buy their first car, it would be an EV — and not just an EV but, hopefully, a Chinese EV. So they did things like — at the time, just a license plate for your car could cost an exorbitant amount of money and be difficult to get. And so they made license plates for electric vehicles free. So there were all these preferential policies that were unveiled to nudge people toward buying EVs.

So that’s fascinating. So China is incentivizing consumers to buy EV cars and incentivizing also the whole industry to get its act together by chucking this big American company in the mix and hoping that it will increase competitiveness. What I’m particularly struck by, Mara, in what you said is the concept of leapfrogging over the conventional combustion engine phase, which took us decades to live through. We’re still living in it, in many ways, in the West.

But listening to you, it sounds a little bit like China wasn’t really thinking about this transition to EVs as an environmental policy. It sounds like they were doing this more from an industrial-policy perspective.

Right. The environment and the horrible era at the time was a factor, but it was a pretty minor factor, according to people who were privy to the policy discussions. The more significant factor was industrial policy and an interest in building up a competitive sphere.

So China now wants to become a leader in the global EV sector, and it wants to use Tesla to get there. What does that actually look like?

Well, you need sophisticated suppliers to make the component parts of electric vehicles. And just by being in China, Tesla helped spur the development of several suppliers. Like, for example, the battery is a crucial piece of any EV.

And Tesla, with a fair amount of encouragement — and also various levers from the Chinese government — became a customer of a battery maker called CATL, a homegrown Chinese battery maker. And they have become very close to Tesla and have even set up a factory near Teslas in Shanghai. And today, with Tesla’s business — and, of course, with the business of some other companies — CATL is the biggest battery maker in the world.

But beyond just stimulating the growth of suppliers, Tesla also made these other fish in the pond swim faster. And the biggest Chinese EV company to come out of that period is one called BYD. It’s short for Build Your Dreams.

We are BYD. You’ve probably never heard of us.

From battery maker to the biggest electric vehicle or EV manufacturer in China.

They’ve got a lot of models. They’ve got a lot of discounts. They’ve got a lot of market growth.

China’s biggest EV maker just overtook Tesla in terms of worldwide sales.

BYD 10, Chinese automobile redefined.

I’ve actually started seeing that brand on the streets here in Europe recently, especially in Germany, where my brother actually used to lease a Tesla and now leases a BYD.

Does he like it?

He does. Although he did, to be fair, say that he misses the luxury of the Tesla, but it just became too expensive, really.

The price point is a huge reason that BYD is increasingly giving Tesla a run for its money. Years ago, back in 2011 —

Although there’s competitors now ramping up. And, as you’re familiar with, BYD, which is also —

— Elon Musk actually mocked their cars.

— electric vehicles, here he is trying to compete. Why do you laugh?

He asked an interviewer —

Have you seen their car?

I have seen their car, yes.

— have you seen their cars? Sort of suggesting, like, they’re no competition for us.

You don’t see them at all as a competitor?

Why is that? I mean, they offer a lower price point.

I don’t think they have a great product. I think their focus is — and rightly should be — on making sure they don’t die in China.

But they have been steadily improving. They’ve been in the EV space for a while, but they really started improving a few years ago, once Tesla came on the scene. That was due to a number of factors, not entirely because of Tesla. But Tesla played a role in helping train up talent in China. One former Tesla employee who worked at the company as they were getting set up in China told me that most of the employees who were at the company at the time now work for Chinese competitors.

So they have really played this important role in the EV ecosystem.

And you mentioned the price advantage. So just for comparison, what does an average BYD sell for compared to a more affordable Tesla car?

So BYD has an ultra-cheap model called the Seagull that sells for around $10,000 now in China, whereas Tesla Model 3s and Model Ys in China sell for more than twice that.

Wow. How’s BYD able to sell EVs at these much lower prices?

Well, the Seagull is really just a simpler car. It has less range than a Tesla. It lacks some safety measures. But BYD has this other crucial advantage, which is that they’re vertically integrated. Like, they control many aspects of the supply chain, up and down the supply chain. When you look at the battery level, they make batteries. But they even own the mines where lithium is mined for the batteries.

And they recently launched a fleet of ships. So they actually operate the boats that are sending their cars to Europe or other parts of the world.

So BYD is basically cutting out the middleman on all these aspects of the supply chain, and that’s how they can undercut other car makers on price.

Yeah. They’ve cut out the middleman, and they’ve cut out the shipping company and almost everything else.

So how is BYD doing now as a company compared to Tesla?

In terms of market cap, they’re still much smaller than Tesla. But, crucially, they overtook Tesla in sales in the last quarter of last year.

Yeah, that was a huge milestone. Tesla still dominates in the European market, which is a very important market for EVs. But BYD is starting to export there. And Europe traditionally is kind of automotive powerhouse, and the companies and government officials there are very, very concerned. I interviewed the French finance minister, and he told me that China has a five - to seven-year head start on Europe when it comes to EVs.

Wow. And what has Elon Musk said about this incredible rise of BYD in recent years? Do you think he anticipated that Tesla’s entry into the Chinese market could end up building up its own competition?

Well, I can’t get inside his head, and he did not respond to our questions. But —

The Chinese car companies are the most competitive car companies in the world.

— he has certainly changed his tune. So, remember, he was joking about BYD some years ago.

Yeah, he’s not joking anymore.

I think they will have significant success.

He had dismissed Chinese EV makers. He now appears increasingly concerned about these new competitors —

Frankly, I think if there are not trade barriers established, they will pretty much demolish most other car companies in the world.

— to the point that on an earnings call in January, he all but endorsed the use of trade barriers against them.

They’re extremely good.

I think it’s so interesting, in a way — of course, with perfect hindsight — the kind of maybe complacency or naivete with which he may not have anticipated this turn of events. And in some ways, he’s not alone, right? It speaks to something larger. Like, China, for a long time, was seen as kind of the sweatshop or the manufacturer of the world — or perhaps as an export market for a lot of these Western companies. It certainly wasn’t putting out its own big brand names. It was making stuff for the brand names.

But recently, they have quite a lot of their own brand names. Everybody talks about TikTok. There’s Huawei. There’s WeChat, Lenovo. And now there is BYD. So China is becoming a leader in technology in certain areas. And I think that shift in some ways has happened. And a lot of Western companies — perhaps like Tesla — were kind of late to waking up to that.

Right. Tesla is looking fragile now. Their stock price dropped 30 percent in the first quarter of this year. And to a large degree, that is because of the threat of companies like BYD from China and the perception that Tesla’s position as number one in the market is no longer guaranteed.

So, Mara, all this raises a much bigger question for me, which is, who is going to own the future of EVs? And based on everything you’ve said so far, it seems like China owns the future of EVs. Is that right?

Well, possibly, but the jury is still out. Tesla is still far bigger for now. But there is this increasing fear that China owns the future of EVs. If you look at the US, there are already 25 percent tariffs on EVs from China. There’s talk of increasing them. The Commerce Department recently launched an investigation into data collection by electric vehicles from China.

So all of these factors are creating uncertainty around what could happen. And the European Union may also add new tariffs against Chinese-made cars. And China is an economic rival and a security rival and, in many ways, our main adversary. So this whole issue is intertwined with national security. And Tesla is really in the middle of it.

Right. So the sort of new Cold War that people are talking about between the US and China is, in a sense, the backdrop to this story. But on one level, what we’ve been talking about, it’s really a corporate story, an economic story that has this geopolitical backdrop. But it’s also very much an environmental story. So, regardless of how Elon Musk and Tesla fare in the end, is BYD’s rise and its ability to create high-quality and — perhaps more importantly — affordable EVs ultimately a good thing for the world?

If I think back on those years I spent living in Shanghai and Beijing when it was extremely polluted and there were days when you couldn’t go outside — I don’t think anyone wants to go back to that.

So it’s clear that EVs are the future and that they’re crucial to the green energy transition that we have to make. How exactly we get there is still unclear. But what is true is that China did just make that transition easier.

Mara, thank you so much.

Thank you, Katrin.

Here’s what else you need to know today.

[CROWD CHEERING]

Millions of people across North America were waiting for their turn to experience a rare event on Monday. From Mexico —

Cuatro, tres, dos, uno.

— to Texas.

Awesome, just awesome.

We can see the corona really well. Oh, you can see —

[BACKGROUND CHATTER]

Oh, and we are falling into darkness right now. What an incredible sensation. And you are hearing and seeing the crowd of 15,000 gathered here in south Illinois.

Including “Daily” producers in New York.

It’s like the sky is almost —

— like a deep blue under the clouds.

Wait, look. It’s just —

Oh my god. The sun is disappearing. And it’s gone. Oh. Whoa.

All the way up to Canada.

Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about. That’s what I’m talking about.

The moon glided in front of the sun and obscured it entirely in a total solar eclipse, momentarily plunging the day into darkness.

It’s super exciting. It’s so amazing to see science in action like this.

Today’s episode was produced by Rikki Novetsky and Mooj Zadie with help from Rachelle Bonja. It was edited by Lisa Chow with help from Alexandra Leigh Young, fact checked by Susan Lee, contains original music by Marion Lozano, Diane Wong, Elisheba Ittoop, and Sophia Lanman and was engineered by Chris Wood.

Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly.

That’s it for “The Daily.” I’m catching Katrin Bennhold. See you tomorrow.

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• April 9, 2024   •   30:48 How Tesla Planted the Seeds for Its Own Potential Downfall
• April 8, 2024   •   30:28 The Eclipse Chaser
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• April 5, 2024   •   29:11 An Engineering Experiment to Cool the Earth
• April 4, 2024   •   32:37 Israel’s Deadly Airstrike on the World Central Kitchen
• April 3, 2024   •   27:42 The Accidental Tax Cutter in Chief
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• April 1, 2024   •   36:14 Ronna McDaniel, TV News and the Trump Problem
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Hosted by Katrin Bennhold

Featuring Mara Hvistendahl

Produced by Rikki Novetsky and Mooj Zadie

With Rachelle Bonja

Edited by Lisa Chow and Alexandra Leigh Young

Original music by Marion Lozano ,  Diane Wong ,  Elisheba Ittoop and Sophia Lanman

Engineered by Chris Wood

Listen and follow The Daily Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music

When Elon Musk set up Tesla’s factory in China, he made a bet that brought him cheap parts and capable workers — a bet that made him ultrarich and saved his company.

Mara Hvistendahl, an investigative reporter for The Times, explains why, now, that lifeline may have given China the tools to beat Tesla at its own game.

On today’s episode

Mara Hvistendahl , an investigative reporter for The New York Times.

Background reading

A pivot to China saved Elon Musk. It also bound him to Beijing .

Mr. Musk helped create the Chinese electric vehicle industry. But he is now facing challenges there as well as scrutiny in the West over his reliance on China.

There are a lot of ways to listen to The Daily. Here’s how.

We aim to make transcripts available the next workday after an episode’s publication. You can find them at the top of the page.

Fact-checking by Susan Lee .

The Daily is made by Rachel Quester, Lynsea Garrison, Clare Toeniskoetter, Paige Cowett, Michael Simon Johnson, Brad Fisher, Chris Wood, Jessica Cheung, Stella Tan, Alexandra Leigh Young, Lisa Chow, Eric Krupke, Marc Georges, Luke Vander Ploeg, M.J. Davis Lin, Dan Powell, Sydney Harper, Mike Benoist, Liz O. Baylen, Asthaa Chaturvedi, Rachelle Bonja, Diana Nguyen, Marion Lozano, Corey Schreppel, Rob Szypko, Elisheba Ittoop, Mooj Zadie, Patricia Willens, Rowan Niemisto, Jody Becker, Rikki Novetsky, John Ketchum, Nina Feldman, Will Reid, Carlos Prieto, Ben Calhoun, Susan Lee, Lexie Diao, Mary Wilson, Alex Stern, Dan Farrell, Sophia Lanman, Shannon Lin, Diane Wong, Devon Taylor, Alyssa Moxley, Summer Thomad, Olivia Natt, Daniel Ramirez and Brendan Klinkenberg.

Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly. Special thanks to Sam Dolnick, Paula Szuchman, Lisa Tobin, Larissa Anderson, Julia Simon, Sofia Milan, Mahima Chablani, Elizabeth Davis-Moorer, Jeffrey Miranda, Renan Borelli, Maddy Masiello, Isabella Anderson and Nina Lassam.

Katrin Bennhold is the Berlin bureau chief. A former Nieman fellow at Harvard University, she previously reported from London and Paris, covering a range of topics from the rise of populism to gender. More about Katrin Bennhold

Mara Hvistendahl is an investigative reporter for The Times focused on Asia. More about Mara Hvistendahl

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