Numbers, numbers, numbers!

Who can say it's not important. We use them in our lives daily, most of the time we don't even realize it. Think about going grocery shopping, taking measurements, following recipes, reading time, or calculating age. Because numbers are so important, it's crucial we know how to pronounce them correctly and be able to hear the differences between different numbers.

One of the most commonly mispronunced are the teen and ten numbers. Many times a number like 18 could be heard as 80. These are sometimes hard to distinguish and even native speakers may ask for verification.

Practice with these:

Teen sounds like the word "mean" or "seen." 

The "ty" in the number seventy when spoken in American English gives off a 'd' sound.



Also, pay attention to where the stress is ( the part in red). The teen numbers are stressed in the "teen" and the ten numbers are stressed in the first number part.



If you still need more practice, try listening to spoken numbers from the website below, remember what you learned from the guide above and practice, practice, practice!



http://www.languageguide.org/english/numbers/%0A

It's a new year again! Are you ready to get proactive this year and start learning English? Now is the time to evaluate your life, set some learning goals, and improve your English by the end of 2014.

Below is my 12 Months To Better English chart. These are some ideas you could incorporate into your life every month. They are fun and easy to do if you devote some time a few times a week.

You could also make your own goals and activities easily to suit your lifestyle and life goals. Think about some of these questions below to decide on your monthly or weekly activities:

Why is English important to your life? Where will you need to use it: At your job? To have basic conversation with people? To travel?

What are the English areas you need to improve on? your listening more than speaking? writing more than reading?

How much time do you have everyday to learn English? Don't give yourself too many tasks if you know it will make you tired and frustrated as this will discourage you from learning. Always start small.

What kind of learner are you? Do you learn best from images? songs? text? diagrams? Try using different methods to learn and see what helps you learn best. Everyone is different.

Whatever you decide to do, do something! Because if you do nothing you will never get anywhere! Learn things that interests you. If you love to cook you could read recipes or cooking books in English and even watch Food Network on YouTube.

Remember: take it slow, be patient, and remind yourself that becoming fluent in a language takes time and is impossible to achieve overnight.

Let me end with a popular saying, "Rome wasn't built in a day!" Meaning all things take time to create (just like Rome). So we shouldn't expect to achieve success immediately but start somewhere!