Getting the right syllable stress is crucial for being understood in English, and there's a chance you may be overlooking some very important words. Numbers! One pronunciation mistake in delivering important figures like sales numbers, for example, could cost you your job. So better fine-tune the rhythm and melody of your numbers, right? Read on for more. 

Business English Communication Skills With Numbers

19, 90, 18, 80, 55, 68.

Curious what these numbers are all about?  

Well, there's a syllable stress related to numbers of these sorts and I want to make sure that you know what it is. In fact, I sent out a quick email earlier this week with a link to one of my videos on the topic, but I wanted to go into a bit more detail today. 

Getting your numbers right is crucial in a variety of business settings. Imagine, for example, updating your boss on the monthly sales, and he understood you to say fourTEEN thousand when he was expecting it to be closer to FOURty.  

Or, what if you were going over the budget for 2024 with your CFO and you asked him for an increase of 15% for training and development, but she heard you say 50.

This may seem like a small challenge to address, but I think you get my drift with these examples that miscommunication can, well, make you look bad.

So before you get into a scenario like this, let’s dive into learning how to properly pronounce the rhythm and melody of numbers with the suffixes -TEEN and - TY.

Listen to me reading the following numbers per column: 

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN

Did you notice any particular differences on how the -teen numbers and -ty numbers are being said? If you did, congratulations! You are one step closer to mastering your American English speaking skills.

If you didn’t notice anything, don’t worry because I’ll walk you through it by giving you some HACKS and TIPS for you to master the rhythm and melody of these numbers.  
 

TIP #1: Look For The Word Stress

To correctly enunciate the rhythm of a number with more than one word, you need to first identify its word stress - which syllable gets the emphasis. Listen to the audio recording one more time so you can identify if it is the first or second syllable that gets stressed in the -teen words. 

Hopefully, by now you can tell that the numbers ending in -teen have the stress on the second syllable--the TEEN. And that means that the -ty numbers get stressed on the first syllable.

Go back and listen again if you need to secure your understanding.

Also, let me illustrate this for you with bold and capital letters so you can make the visual and auditory connection. 

Now, try reading these numbers yourself and remember to make the stress syllables louder, longer, and higher in pitch.  

TIP#2: Let Your Voice Glide

Once you are familiar with the word stress, you can go deeper into how we emphasize stressed syllables.

For example, click here to listen to how I add more melody to the long syllable. First I'm going to exaggerate the melody and then I'll make it sound more natural. Either way, this practice is going to help you sound less robotic when you speak.

Sounding less robotic is also about the transition between the stressed and unstressed syllables. You have to make sure that you don’t cut your breath between the syllables. See if you can hear that as I glide. 

 TIP#3: Listen For The Flapped /t/

Another way that you can differentiate -teen from -ty is through the pronunciation of the /t/ sound.

For the -TEEN ending numbers, the letter /t/ sounds like a true /t/. However, for -TY numbers the letter /t/ sounds like a sneaky /d/ sound. This is what we call a Flapped /t/.

So you can say THIRdy, FORdy, SEVENdy, EIGHdy, NINEdy, but you have to really lengthen the first syllable. Listen back to my last recording to hear how I use the flap sound.   
 

TIP#4: Shift The Word Stress For Clarification

Listen to me reading these sentences by clicking here.

1.  The current revenue has increased by 30%. 
2.  Her presentation lasted for thirteen minutes. 
3. The HR Department has reported that we have fifty new employees. 

You try reading them now.

Did you say, "The current revenue has increased by 30 or 13%?  Say it again!

Now, let's talk about clarification. In the following sentence, I'm simply stating how many minutes it took her to present:

Her presentation lasted for thirTEEN minutes. 

However, in the next sentence, someone didn't understand and asks a clarification question with the stress shifting to the first syllable. Look:

Did you say she finished her presentation in fifteen minutes or THIRteen minutes? 

Can you see why this needs to happen?  

 TIP#5: Emphasize The Last Number For Numbers With More Than 2 Digits

Read this sentence:

The HR Department has reported that we have fifty-five new employees. 

We have to put the stress on the word FIVE because for every number with more than 2 digits, it is always the last number that gets the emphasis.

But remember that even though the last number gets the primary stress, don’t forget the word stress in the first number. To illustrate it, I will still make the first syllable of fifty in bold letters as this is where the stress is in the -ty number. But as it is paired with another number, this will only become the secondary stress. Let me illustrate more examples:

Fifty-FIVE (55)
Eighty-SIX (86)
Ninety-NINE (99)

Phew!! That might be a lot for you. But I hope that by learning how to get the proper rhythm of the numbers, you've gained more confidence in your presentation not only with the correct figures but also with the correct delivery of these figures.

Practice the numbers in this post and surely you'll enhance your communication skills.