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Word Stress in English
Word
stress is your
magic key
to
understanding spoken English. Native speakers of
English
use word stress naturally. Word
stress is so natural for them that they don't even
know they
use it. Non-native speakers
who speak English to native speakers without using
word stress,
encounter two problems:
1.
They find it
difficult to understand native speakers,
especially
those speaking fast.
2.
The native speakers may find it
difficult to understand them.
In this lesson we look at the most
important aspects of word stress, followed by a
short quiz
to check your understanding:
I.
Understanding Syllables
for Word Stress
II.
What is Word
Stress?
III.
Why is Word Stress
Important?
VI.
Where do I Put Word Stress?
V.
Word Stress
Rules
VI.
Word Stress Quiz
I. Understanding Syllables
To understand word stress, it helps to
understand
syllables
.
Every word is made from syllables.
Each word has one, two, three or more
syllables.
word
dog
green
quite
quiet
orange
table
expensive
interesting
realistic
dog
green
quite
qui-et
or-ange
ta-ble
ex-pen-sive
in-ter-est-ing
re-al-is-tic
number of syllables
1
1
1
2
2
2
3
4
4
unexceptional
un-ex-cep-
tion-al
5
Notice that (with
a few rare exceptions) every syllable contains at
least one
vowel
(a, e, i, o
or u) or
vowel
sound
.
II. What
is Word Stress?
In English, we do not
say each syllable with the same force or strength.
In one word, we
accentuate ONE
syllable. We say
one
syllable very
loudly
(big,
strong, important) and
all
the other syllables
very
quietly
.
Let's
take 3 words:
photograph
,
photographer
and
photographic
. Do they sound
the
same when spoken? No. Because we
accentuate (stress) ONE syllable in each word. And
it is
not always the same syllable. So
the
shape
of each word is
different.
click word to
hear
shape
PHO
TO
GRAPH
total
stressed
syllables
syllable
3
#1
4
4
#2
#3
PHO
TO
GRAPH
ER
PHO TO
GRAPH
IC
This happens
in ALL words with 2 or more syllables: TEACHer,
JaPAN, CHINa, aBOVE,
converSAtion,
INteresting, imPORtant, deMAND, etCETera,
etCETera, etCETera
The syllables that
are not stressed are
weak
or
small
or
quiet
. Native speakers of
English
listen for the STRESSED
syllables, not the weak syllables. If you use word
stress in your
speech, you will
instantly and automatically improve your
pronunciation
and your
comprehension
.
Try to hear the stress in individual
words each time you listen to English - on the
radio, or in
films for example. Your
first step is to HEAR and recognise it. After
that, you can USE it!
There are two
very important rules about word stress:
1.
One word, one
stress.
(One word cannot
have two stresses. So
if you hear two
stresses, you have heard two words, not one
word.)
2.
T
he
stress is always on a vowel.
III. Why is Word Stress Important?
Word stress is not used in all
languages. Some languages, Japanese or
French for example, pronounce each
syllable with eq-ual em-pha-sis.
Other
languages, English for example, use word stress.
Word stress is not an optional extra
that you can add to the English
language if you want. It is part of the
language! English speakers use
word
stress to communicate rapidly and accurately, even
in difficult
conditions. If, for
example, you do not hear a word clearly, you can
still
understand the word because of
the position of the stress.
Think again
about the two words photograph and photographer.
Now
imagine that you are speaking to
somebody by telephone over a very bad
line. You cannot hear clearly. In fact,
you hear only the first two syllables
of one of these words, photo... Which
word is it, photograph or
photographer?
Of course, with word stress you will know
immediately
which word it is because in
reality you will hear
either
PHOto...
or
phoTO...
So without hearing
the whole word, you
probably know what
the word is (
PHOto...graph
or
phoTO...grapher
). It's
magic! (Of course, you also have the
'context' of your conversation to help
you.)
This is a simple
example of how word stress helps us understand
English.
There are many, many other
examples, because we use word stress all
the time, without thinking about it.
IV Where do I Put Word Stress?
There are some
rules
about which syllable
to stress. But...the rules are
rather
complicated! Probably the best way to learn is
from experience.
Listen carefully to
spoken English and try to develop a feeling for
the
When you learn a new
word, you should also learn its stress pattern. If
you keep a vocabulary book, make a note
to show which syllable is
stressed. If
you do not know, you can look in a dictionary. All
dictionaries
give the phonetic spelling
of a word. This is where they show which
syllable is stressed, usually with an
apostrophe (') just before or
just
after the stressed syllable. (The notes at the
front of the dictionary