Hey, what’s up. I’m Hadar, and this is your how-to-pronounce Accent’s Way video. Today we’re gonna talk about the two words: million and billion. Very important words, right? Especially if we’re planning to make a lot of millions and billions.

So, million. First of all, both of them sound kind of the same so we’re gonna concentrate on the word million. The first syllable is a relaxed ‘I’ sound – ‘mil’. So it’s not ‘meel’, but ‘mil’. So your jaw kind of drop, and there is space between your teeth, and you’re kind of lazy when you’re saying it. ‘mil’.

Then you have a reduced vowel – yin. It begins with a Y sound, a schwa – although it’s spelled with an O, there is no O. It’s not mil-yon, but mil-y’, and then an N at the end. mil-y’n. mil-y’n. The primary stress falls on the first syllable, so it’s higher in pitch: MIL-y’n. 1 million dollars. On the other hand, you have ‘billion’, right? So you kinda like close your lips for the B – billion. 1 billion dollars. All right? Million and billion. Million and billion.

So you don’t have to say it a million times in order to get it, but you do wanna practice it quite a few times until you get used to the new pronunciation. So go for it, good luck. And I’ll see you next week in the next video. Bye.