This is video 2 in my series on English pronunciation. In this video, I’m going
to introduce the importance of syllable stress when pronouncing English words.
In the first video of this series on pronunciation, I explained that a syllable
is a single unit of pronunciation – and each English word is made up of 1 or more syllables.
For English words with more than one syllable, there is a natural stress to the word. A stressed
syllable is a syllable that you pronounce with louder volume than an unstressed syllable.
For example: Helmet (the first syllable of this word is stressed)
You don’t pronounce the word: helMET (that’s incorrect)
Another example: Hotel (the second syllable of this word is stressed)
You don’t pronounce the word HOtel (that’s incorrect)
Let’s look at some longer words and see where the stress lies.
Accountant (second syllable) Understand (first and third)
Fascinate (first and third) Intelligent (second and fourth)
If you look up a word in a dictionary, it will usually tell you which syllable or syllables
are stressed. Knowing where the stress is can be important for many reasons. One immediately useful
reason is, syllables that are not stressed will often receive the “uh” sound – especially when
the unstressed syllable comes between stressed syllables. Let’s look at some examples.
Uh COUNT unt UND uhr STAND
FASC uh NATE In TELL uh GENT
Fi NAN shull PROP uh SI shun
IN CONT truh VERT uh bull IN stuh TOO shun ull uh ZAY shun
Stress tells you more about how to pronounce a word sometimes than spelling does.
In later videos, I’ll show you more about how to use stress
to make your sentences sound more like native speakers.
But let’s look at one more interesting fact about syllable stress. There are a
few dozen words in English which actually change meaning depending on which syllable is stressed.
Let’s look at some significant examples:
First, some words change from a noun to a verb depending on stress. For example:
CONflict is the noun… when two people don’t agree on something, they
Have a CON flict with each other.
conFLICT is the verb… your story and my story disagree, they CONFLICT.
CONtrast is the noun… there is a CONtrast between our views and their
Views. They aren’t the same. conTRAST the verb…
compare and contrast these two poems, show the differences between them.
IMport is a noun that means something brought in from outside the
Country. This coffee is an import from Bali. ImPORT is the verb meaning to bring something in.
We imported this Coffee from Bali.
Some words change their meaning entirely depending on stress. For example:
AD-dress an address is where someone lives or where they can be reached.
What is your email address? A-DRESS means to speak to someone directly.
I want to address my remarks to Everyone on the council.
CON-sole is an area for the controls of some
equipment or machine. I have an X-box gaming console.
Con-SOLE is a verb meaning to comfort someone. I consoled her after dad’s death.
SUB-ject is a topic. The subject of today’s lesson is syllable stress.
Sub-JECT is a verb meaning to impose something or to make someone endure
Something. “I don’t want to subject you to another test.”
Notice the “uh” sound in many of the unstressed syllables above
Uh-DreSS
Cun-SOLE Sub-JECT
But it doesn’t always work – AD-dress,
CON-sole, SUB-ject. This isn’t a 100% rule. Nothing in English pronunciation is 100%!
Now, let’s do some practice. Try to notice where the stress is on each of these words:
Adjective AD ject IVE Verbalize VERB ull IZE
Refuse ruh FUZE Determined duh TER mund
Wonderful WON dur FUL Sanctimonious SANC tuh MO nee us