Numbers seem easy until someone says "The bus is in fifteen minutes" and you hear "fifty." Thirteen and thirty, or fourteen and forty, sound very close in fast speech. Learners also translate big numbers word by word, saying "one thousand and five hundred" where Americans often say "fifteen hundred," or they read a phone number as one long string with no pauses. Today you learn to say and hear teens and tens clearly, read big numbers the American way, and give a phone number so people get it right the first time. In this episode: • Teens and tens: stress and sound • Checking a number • Big numbers out loud • Phone numbers • Invented scene: the plumber's number • Practice • Self-check questions with answers Key phrases from this episode: thirteen (thir-TEEN) — 13 thirty (THIR-dee) — 30 fourteen (for-TEEN) — 14 forty (FOR-dee) — 40 fifteen (fif-TEEN) — 15 fifty (FIF-tee) — 50. After F, the T stays a clear T. sixteen (six-TEEN) — 16 sixty (SIX-tee) — 60. After X, the T stays clear too. seventeen (sev-en-TEEN) — 17 seventy (SEV-en-tee) — 70 eighteen (ay-TEEN) — 18 eighty (AY-dee) — 80 nineteen (nine-TEEN) — 19 ninety (NINE-dee) — 90 Did you say fifteen or fifty? — the easiest check (neutral) Fifteen, one-five? — say the digits to be sure (neutral) Fifty, five-oh? — the digits for 50 (neutral) Sorry, is that thirteen, as in one-three? — a gentle check (polite) The bus is in fifteen minutes. — leave soon (neutral) It's forty degrees out. — it's cold outside, in Fahrenheit (casual) Grandma's turning eighty next week. — her eightieth birthday is coming (casual) Season 2 · Real American English: the complete spoken course for learners worldwide — accent, everyday grammar, prepositions, articles, phrasal verbs, idioms, slang and real conversations at home. Listen, repeat out loud, then take the 52-question quiz. Audio voiced with AI from an original script by Dr. Rashmi R Nair.