Key Pronunciation - Can/Can't & Numbers

Hello and welcome back to our module on powerful phone talk.

Our second lesson is understand and be understood on the phone.

I gave it that title because as we’ve all experienced, talking on the phone and understanding the other person and getting the other person to understand you can be very difficult.

I’m sure all of you can think of many phone conversations in English and in your first language that didn’t go so well because you and the other speaker just couldn’t understand each other.

The connection was bad, the other person spoke too softly, there was a lot of noise.

Or some other distraction.

Because phone call conversations can be difficult, in this lesson I’m going to review two of the most common problems and look at ways to avoid them and improve understanding.

We’ll review and practice pronouncing can and can’t.

And teens, tens and other numbers.

First, let’s start off with can and can’t.

What do you think the biggest pronunciation difference between these two are?

A lot of English learners think the difference is with the t at the end.

However, listen to these examples.

Can you hear me?

I can’t see you.

You can pay online.

You can’t pay with cash.

Did you hear the t?

I didn’t use the t sound in any of those sentences, and many people don’t.

Then what was different?

It’s how the a is pronounced.

When I say can inside a sentence, I shorten the a.

Listen carefully to these sentences and pay close attention to the word can.

I can hear you.

The team can meet in my office.

The doctor can see you now.

But when I say can’t, I stress that a and make it really long.

I can’t hear you.

They can’t meet today.

The doctor can’t see you.

That stressed A, the long A is what makes the difference.

Rather than listening for a T from now on, listen to how the A is pronounced and you will know whether it’s can or can’t.

Of course, if you or the other person just don’t hear the difference, saying cannot rather than can’t will help solve the problem.

So what do you hear?

Do I say can or can’t?

I can set up the meeting.

Yes, I said can.

There was no long a sound.

They can’t buy it there.

That’s right.

I said can’t.

You heard that long A sound.

We can’t work that day.

Right again.

I said can’t.

You heard that long A sound.

OK, listen as I say a few more sentences, and decide if I’m saying can or can’t.

We’ll do a check at the end.

My friend can do it.

He can’t attend the meeting.

I can do this.

How did you do?

Here are the answers to what I said.

If you got most of them right, that’s great.

Next, let’s look at another challenge on the phone.

Numbers.

Especially the difference between teen’s and tens.

I want you to listen as I say the numbers and identify how they are different

thirteen, thirty

fourteen, forty

fifteen, fifty

sixteen, sixty

seventeen, seventy

eighteen, eighty

nineteen, ninety

Both the stress, and the sound of the T are different.

We stress teens on the second syllable, and tens on the first.

The t in the teen number sounds like t, but the t in the tens sounds more like d.

Listen for the stress of the sound of the t in the following sentences.

The meeting in room 114 begins at 9:50.

John is 40.

Janet is 17.

Bob is 70 and Sara is 19.

About 15 of my employees live near the office.

90 thousand people visited the website in less than 30 minutes.

There were 80 people at the conference.

And here it is with the stress marked.

With practice, you will soon be able to see and hear the difference easily.

What else do we need to think about when pronouncing numbers?

Especially long numbers.

First, how do we say a large number like this?

Generally, we use two number phrases, six thousand, four hundred and seventy two.

But if it’s a date like this, we’ll say 1776.

We divide the numbers and prices at the decimal point and similarly split the numbers when we talk about the time, in two.

So this would be a 59,99 sweater And this would be 11:55 pm

If we don’t follow these standard pronunciations, it can lead to miscommunication.

One of the easiest ways to avoid this is to simply repeat the number by saying one digit at a time.

For example, my address is 1428 Peachtree street, or one four two eight Peachtree street.

Always use this method when saying your phone number.

For example, five five five, two five two five.

In this lesson we have looked at how to pronounce and hear the different between can and can’t and how to pronounce and understand numbers.

You can review this information on the resource sheet in the lesson.

Working on these two pronunciation skills will improve your fluency and make it easier for others to understand you, and it will make telephone calls less scary and more fun.

Talk to you soon.