English Pronunciation: How to pronounce numbers

Hi there. Welcome to more pronunciation. Today we're going to talk about numbers. I really

don't like numbers and they kind of confuse me. That's why I'm an English teacher, not

a math teacher. But I can teach you how to say them. I'm going to teach you two kinds

of numbers that are very difficult in English. The reason why is, in your language, you usually

have numbers that are very separate with each other. In English, the sound is almost the

same. So I'll teach you how to pronounce them and how to listen for the difference. Let's

start with the teens, shall we? This first number is 13. Then we have 14, 15, 16, and

17. The important thing about these numbers is to really emphasize the word teen. If I

compare these numbers with the tens numbers, let me show you what I mean. This word, for

example, is thir-tee. So we have thir-tee and thir-teen. So, to help you, I want you

to really, really drag out the end of this word. We're going to go 13, 14, 15. You don't

really have to do it that much in real life. You're not going to go to a store and go,

"I'd like thir-teen hamburgers." You're going to just drag it out more than if you would

say this number, which is thir-tee. You can either think of it as thir-tee, the tea that

you drink, or if you'd like to make it even easier for yourself, you can just put a big

fat T. So we're going to pronounce any word that has a zero as thir-tee. Once again, this

is how I'm teaching you to speak it as well as this. We don't actually spell it like this.

The spelling of this is this, so thir-tee. So we have thir-tee and thir-teen. Practice

that one. Thir-tee, thir-teen. You will hear that the teen is dragged out longer. Also,

the thir-tee is a very fast way of saying the number, thir-tee. This one, we drag it

out thir-tee. Let's try another one. Does anyone know how to say this magic number?

This number is four-tee. Pronunciation. Four-tee. If you match this with fourteen, you can hear

the difference. If I say that's forty dollars compared to that's fourteen dollars. Next

one. Does anyone know what fifteen would be if we put it in tens? Oh, this sounds like

math class all of a sudden. I'll tell you. It would be this number. This number would

be fif-tee. It's actually the name of my favorite beer in Canada. Has anyone tried that beer?

Fifty? It's delicious. So we have fif-tee and fif-teen. I want you to think about this

one. This is sixteen. What number do you think I'm going to write here? Anyone know the answer?

This number is six-tee. So we have six-tee and six-teen. And last but not least, seventeen.

If we put it into tens, it would be seven-tee. So we have seven-tee. If you can count to

ten in English, this will be an easier way for you to remember the pronunciation of the

tens numbers. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. All you're going

to do is put, for some of them, four-tee, six-tee, seven-tee, eight-tee, nine-tee. That'll

help you. Once again, please remember that thirteen is a long dragged out pronunciation

where thirty is a very short pronunciation. I hope that you guys can go to www.engvid.com

and check out some of the quizzes and maybe, just maybe, you'll see one about numbers.

That's all for now. Bye.