Word Stress
1. The first “key” to English pronunciation is word stress. To understand word stress, you have to understand syllables.
2. Every word is made from syllables. Each word has one, two, three or more syllables. For examples look at the chart below:
word number of syllables
quite quite 1
quiet qui-et 2
orange or-ange 2
table ta-ble 2
expensive ex-pen-sive 3
interesting in-ter-est-ing 4
realistic re-al-is-tic 4
unexceptional un-ex-cep-tion-al 5
3. Notice that every syllable contains at least one vowel (a, e, i, o or u) or vowel sound.
4. Word stress is very important for speaking English. In every multiple-syllable word, one syllable is accentuated more than the other syllables.
Examples: TEACHer. photoGRAPHic, deMAND, imPORtant
5. There are two very simple but important rules about word stress:
1. Every word only has 1 stress—if you hear 2 stresses, you are hearing 2 words
2. The stress is always on a vowel.
Sentence Stress
1. Just as English uses word stress, it also uses sentence stress. The basic rules of sentence stress are:
1. content words are stressed
2. structure words are unstressed
3. the time between stressed words is always the same
2. Content words are necessary to understand the meaning of the sentence.
main verbs SELL, GIVE, EMPLOY
Nouns CAR, MUSIC, MARY
adjectives RED, BIG, INTERESTING
adverbs QUICKLY, LOUDLY, NEVER
negative auxiliaries DON'T, AREN'T, CAN'T
4. Structure words aren’t necessary to understand the meaning of the sentence, but they are necessary for correct grammar.
pronouns he, we, they
prepositions on, at, into
articles a, an, the
conjunctions and, but, because
auxiliary verbs do, be, have, can, must
5. Example: I will sell my car when I go back to Japan.
In this sentence, you would stress the words in boldface type.
6. Exception: Sometimes we can stress a word that would normally be only a structure word to correct information. For example:
"They've been to China, haven't they?"
"No, THEY haven't, but WE have.
