Category: Pronunciation

Today let’s look at a very simple mistake which some of my students kept making for a very long time.

Many people mispronounce numbers that end with -teen or -ty. They read numbers like 30 as thirteen and 13 as thirty. Today we’ll try dealing with this issue by looking at why the numbers between 13 and 19 end with teen:

I tell my students that when we talk about people that are between 13 and 19 years old, we call them teenagers. So, when we say their age, it always ends with -teen.

Let’s practice this by doing a short activity below.

For many people, their teenage years are the happiest years in their lives.
What about you? What’s your most vivid memory of your teenage years?
Leave a comment below and have a great weekend! 🙂

Just like we use an when our noun starts with a vowel (the letters a, e, i, o, u) or starts with a vowel sound (e.g.  the hour) there’s a special way to pronounce the article the with the same words.

You need to pronounce the letter e in the just like you read the letter E in the alphabet [i:].

Now, try to pronounce the and listen to yourself speaking.

Let’s look at a few examples:

The apple

The envelope

The island

The ocean

The umbrella

Now, try to pronounce the same words yourself and listen to how you speak.

The words are:

• The apple
• The envelope
• The island
• The ocean
• The umbrella

I decided to make my next video about how to pronounce the th sound and I’d love to know how you pronounce it. Feel free to leave a comment with a short recording of your speech using vocaroo to share with us.
Who knows? I might even make a special tip for you in the video. 🙂