Hello Plus Member, welcome back to another bonus episode. So today I'm going to focus on pronunciation and particularly pronunciation of numbers. Now in yesterday's episode, we discussed common phrases that we use when talking about our age. And so I thought this was a good opportunity to tackle what is a common pronunciation problem. Now I'm talking about numbers in the tens and numbers in the thousands. So let me start with the bigger number, thousand. Now, the reason this causes problems is first of all, because of the TH at the beginning, the S in the middle and the final vowel that comes in the word that is actually replaced by a schwa sound. So with the TH we start with our tongue between the teeth for our voiceless/θ/ sound. Thou, and we open our mouth wide to make the big/aʊ/ diphthong. Thou. And then we have the voiced S, so it actually sounds like a Z, zzz, thou-zzz. Thou-zzz. And rather than'sand', as it's spelt A N D at the end, it's'und'. Thousand, thousand. So we have a'und','und'. Thousand. Do make sure that you are getting that D at the end as well. ND,'und','und'. Thousand thousand. Let's imagine it's plural. So let's add an S on the end. Thousands, thousands. So there, we don't release the D, we just go into another Z sound. Thousands. Thousands. Thousands and thousands and thousands. Hehe! Okay, so the other group of words are the tens. So I'm talking about not the teens, not the eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen I'm talking about everything from twenty. And it's this T, twenty, twenty one, twenty two. What tends to happen is either the second T in twenty or forty or thirty, the second T is often dropped. And you hear twenty, thirty, forty. Now you will hear native speakers doing this as well. However, I strongly encourage you to try to work towards keeping the T audible because, especially with numbers, it helps to keep everything very clear and precise. So work towards perfection in pronunciation. You don't always have to hit it. You'll naturally start to relax as you become more and more confident, but at least aim towards perfection. Don't aim to drop final consonants and things like that, because I hear non-native speakers do that too often, and it can cause a lot of confusion and cause that awful question: I'm sorry, could you say that again? Which none of us want. So, work towards hitting that T. Twenty, twenty one, twenty two, twenty three. The other thing is actually the treatment of that last vowel, the/i:/. Twenty, twenty. Often this is shortened, so it's/ɪ/, twenty, which we don't want. So you don't want it to be shortened to'twenteh one','twenteh two'. You want to smile into that Y sound that/i:/ twenty one, twenty two, twenty three, twenty four, twenty five, twenty six. Now sometimes people struggle when we have the threes because of the TH, so when we have thirty three. Because you have the TH twice, and so we have that tongue between the teeth position twice. Thirty three. Thirty three, thirty three, thirty three, thirty three. Often it's best to just slow down with your pronunciation. Really work the sounds in an overexaggerated way. And work it over and over in an exaggerated way until it starts to feel quite natural. And then you can pull it back and be more subtle. but still hitting those same positions and sounds. Alright, well, I'm going to wrap up this session by just giving you a'follow me' section. So I just want you to repeat after me, if you're alone, of course, we're going to start at twenty and we're going to go all the way up to fifty five. Okay. So repeat after me. Twenty, twenty one, twenty two, twenty three, twenty four, twenty five, twenty six, twenty seven, twenty eight, twenty nine, thirty. Thirty one, thirty two, thirty three, thirty four, thirty five, thirty six, thirty seven, thirty eight, thirty nine, forty. Forty one, forty two, forty three, forty four, forty five, forty six, forty seven, forty eight, forty nine, fifty. Fifty one, fifty two, fifty three, fifty four, fifty five. Well done. Fantastic. Okay. Now, because you're a Plus Member, don't forget that you do get special treatment. So if you have any, what's the word, suggestions or requests, if you would like me to send a message on this podcast to a friend to wish someone a happy birthday or anything like that, then you can make your requests. I can't always guarantee that I'll be able to deliver on your request, but I will try my hardest. Okay. So if you have a particular question, something that's troubling you, or you have a request to do a shout out to somebody, then. Let me know and I will try my best to facilitate and to satisfy you. Thanks once again for all your support. Until next time, take very good care and goodbye.