Tips for Pronouncing Numbers Correctly - Thirteen, thirty; Fourteen, forty; and more

Aww yeah, RealLifers, what's going on? This is Ethan with a special one minute video for you.

So, today I'm going to talk to you about a problem that many students of mine have had

with pronunciation with numbers. So, maybe you make the same mistake.

Is this RealLife?

Do you ever confuse 15, 50; 14, 40; 13, 30, etc?

Today I just wanted to go over these real quick to help you with the pronunciation.

So, first of all, I'm going to recommend that you check out an article that Justin wrote

on the pronunciation of T. So you can check that out here.

So, what happens in American English is that when we have the T sound, or the letter T,

between two vowel sounds, it changes to a D sound.

So, why this is important is because this happens in a lot of the numbers that are multiples

of ten. So, for example, we don't say thirty [T sound], we say thirty [american D sound].

We don't say forty [T sound], we say forty [american D sound], because it's between this

"o" and "e" sound.

So, this makes it easier to differenciate thirteen, which has a very distinct "een"

sound at the end, from thirty, which has the very disctinct D sound at the end.

Thirteen, thirty. Fourteen, forty.

Fifteen and fifty are a little bit easier, fifteen, fifty. That does have the T sound.

Sixteen, sixty. Seventeen, seventy. It has the D sound.

Eighteen, eighty. Eighty, between the "a" and the "e" sound. Eighty, with the D sound.

Nineteen, ninety. Ok.

Alright guys, so, be sure to practice this a lot, any time that you're alone, in the

shower, in your car driving to work, when you're standing on a street corner waiting

for the light to turn green...

When practicing this, you don't want to seem like a crazy person, so better when you're

alone. But really, practice makes perfect, so a little bit everyday and you will get

it, no worries.

Alright guys, so, be sure to go practice this, put it to use, and stop confusing people with

numbers.

Later!