“We could probably get to around 75” is not a number. It's a maybe, wearing a number's clothes.

Most negotiation advice focuses on what to say. Almost none of it covers what to listen for, which is strange, since the other side's actual position is usually audible if you know what to catch. A firm number and a soft one can be delivered in the exact same confident, friendly tone. The difference lives in the words surrounding the number, not the number itself, and reading a hedge as certainty is one of the most common ways candidates leave money on the table without ever realizing there was more available.

1. 1

   Count the hedge words before the number, not after

   "Could," "probably," "around," "somewhere in the range of," and "I think" are all doing the same job: giving the speaker room to move. One hedge before a number is normal speech. Two or more stacked together is a signal the number itself isn't final yet, and there's likely more room on the table.

2. 2

   Listen for the number's grammar, not just its value

   "We can do 75" is a statement. "We could probably get to 75" is a possibility. Same figure, completely different level of commitment, and the only way to tell them apart is the sentence structure wrapped around the number, since both often get delivered in the same even, confident tone.

3. 3

   Notice what happens right after you push back

   A firm number usually gets repeated exactly, sometimes with added justification. A soft number often shifts, even slightly, or gets restated with a new hedge attached. That shift, however small, is the clearest confirmation you'll get that the first number had room in it.

4. 4

   Separate the pause from the hesitation

   A brief pause before a number can just be someone doing mental math. A pause paired with a filler like "um" or "let's see" right before the figure usually means they're deciding how much to reveal, not calculating anything. The first is neutral. The second is worth noting.

None of this requires memorizing a list of hedge words. It requires ear training on real, fast, unscripted speech, the kind where hedges get compressed and half-swallowed in a way no textbook dialogue ever sounds like. A recruiter or hiring manager isn't going to slow down or enunciate more clearly during a salary conversation. If anything, hedged numbers tend to get delivered faster, not slower, since there's a natural instinct to move past the uncertain part of a sentence quickly.

This is exactly what PopEar is for.

PopEar's clips are unscripted and full-speed, the same messy, hedge-heavy English a real negotiation actually uses, nothing like a script written to be easy to follow.

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A number is never just a number in a negotiation. It arrives wrapped in grammar that tells you, if you're listening for it, exactly how much confidence sits behind it. That skill is trainable, the same way any other listening skill is, and it's worth more in a single conversation than most vocabulary study ever will be.