hi everyone I'm Jenna welcome back to learn academic English I teach intermediate and
advanced level lessons for English Learners who want to take their language to the next level and
today I'm going to talk about pronunciation and I'm going to give you an easy rule that's going
to help you make your pronunciation more clear and going to help you to predict the pronunciation of
words that you don't know I always tell my students that learning word stress should
be a priority for them if they want to improve their pronunciation the reason for this is that
word stress is extremely important in English if a person uses correct word stress often that
allows the other person to understand them even if they mispronounce the sounds of the word also word
stress is what helps to make the rhythm of English and English has a very up and down sing-song type
of Rhythm that we enjoy so if your English sounds really flat and monotone that doesn't sound nice
to an English speaker's ear on the other hand if you can use word stress to add more Rhythm
to your English then your English is going to sound more natural and nicer to English speakers
so today I'm going to talk about a very easy rule for you to improve your word stress but
before we get into that I'd like to remind you to please give this video a like if you find it
helpful leave a comment and subscribe if you want more lessons from a real English teacher
so the rule that we have here today is about two syllable nouns how do we stress two syllable nouns
this is a pretty basic rule maybe you already know it but if you don't I think you're going to find
it helpful so let's take a look at the First Column of words where is the word stress which
syllable is pronounced higher and stronger or maybe longer parent sibling brother uncle Grandpa
childhood household so if you listen to all those words you should notice that the stress is on
the first syllable listen again parent sibling brother uncle we don't say uncle we say uncle
Grandpa childhood childhood we don't say childhood we say childhood
household okay so maybe you're thinking well all of these words are about family or about
the home maybe that's a rule that words that are about family or home have the stress on the first
syllable well let's take a look at another category which is about animals or insects
insect eagle lizard spider cougar lion monkey where's the word stress on these words
insect so do I say insect or do I say insect insect all of these words have stress on the first
syllable okay let's look at the next group and these are all places building venue do you know
the word venue a venue is a special place where parties or weddings can be held a wedding venue
Garden desert prison Island River what do you notice about these words stress is on the first
syllable again so we're starting to see a pattern aren't we oops this one usually we put the word
stress over the vowel so let's take a look at the last column and these are just some random words
that I thought of these are abstract nouns things that you usually wouldn't see progress distance
image Focus conflict project profit what do you notice about the word stress in these words
on the first syllable again profit I don't say profit project I don't say project
again these are two syllable nouns with word stress on the first syllable so the rule is that
usually if it's a noun and it has two syllables the word stress is usually on the first syllable
and you want to think about raising your voice a little bit to make that stress on the first
syllable as in spider spider spider Uncle I don't say uncle I say uncle he's my uncle
Grandpa is your grandpa still alive Grandpa siblings
how many siblings do you have so how can you use this information to help you improve your
pronunciation well first of all think of some common two syllable nouns that you use
in conversation make sure that you pronounce them with stress on the first syllable as in building
next when you see a new word a word that you maybe have never pronounced before or maybe a word that
you don't even know if it's a two-syllable noun you're gonna probably stress the first syllable
this works in about eighty percent of the time so there are some nouns that don't have stress on
the first syllable but again in general if it's a two-syllable noun you're going to stress the first
syllable so in the comments below let me know if you have questions and you can practice with me
let me know if you can think of other two syllable nouns that have stress on the first syllable
and if you would like to improve your pronunciation more please check out my
English pronunciation playlist I've been teaching pronunciation for many years and if you are trying
to learn American English or if you just want to improve your English speaking to be more clear I
think my pronunciation videos will be helpful take care and I hope to see you back here soon