Are there any rules for worst stress in English? If there are, then what are the rules for word
stress in English? By the end of this video you're going to know eight simple rules to know how to
stress words in English. Hi my name is Emma and welcome to my channel Pronunciation with Emma
where I focus on British English pronunciation and listening skills. So if that's something that
interests you, then why not hit that subscribe button? If you're also interested in one-to-one
private classes to help improve your pronunciation or your English in general, then why not check out
Preply?You can find your perfect teacher by using the filter options on the platform. You can find a
teacher who suits your schedule and easily book a lesson on their website or app. You can keep track
of your learning progress as well as do extra activities outside of your lessons. Preply is
truly a complete and all-in-one platform where you get access to teachers as well as plenty of
resources to practice your English skills. If your goal this year is to improve your English
and you're looking for a private teacher to help you with that, then check out Preply. Use the link
down below in the description and use the code "Emma" to get 50% off your first lesson. Thank
you very much Preply for sponsoring this video, now let's talk about some word stress. Now, before
we start talking about the eight rules for word stress, we're going to start with some absolute
basics that you need to know. And that is, what is a syllable? So a syllable is essentially the
units of a word. They're the sections of the word. They're where we break the word up. For
example, the word "go" has just one syllable. However, "happy" has two syllables. "excited",
three syllables. "reality", four syllables. "understandable", five syllables. "accessibility",
six syllables. So you see we can add more and more syllables the longer the word gets, however,
don't think that the more letters you add, the more syllables there are. For example, we
have "a" one syllable, "at" one syllable but two letters, "sit" one syllable three letters, "fool"
one syllable four letters, "tooth" one syllable five letters, you see where I'm going with this.
"bought" six letters. "brought" seven letters, so don't think that the more letters a word has the
more syllables it has, okay? It's not always the case. So now we know what syllables are,
let's start looking at our first rule. Take a look at these words: table ticket pencil record. What
do all these have in common? They are two syllable nouns. And where does the stress go? On the first
syllable. So notice when we stress syllables, we're adding more emphasis, we're pronouncing it
more strongly. So: pencil table ticket record. So let's take "ticket" for an example, it's a perfect
one here, we have the same vowel sounds in both syllables, but I'm not saying TI- CKET, it's not
strong-strong, that first one is stronger. Rule number two, take a look at these words: happy
angry busy easy. What do all these have in common again? They're not nouns! They're adjectives. Two
syllable adjectives. And just like our first rule the stress goes on the first syllable. So again,
make sure you're pronouncing those stronger syllables with more emphasis. Rule number three,
take a look at these words and think about what they have in common this time: record
provide allow become. They're all... verbs. They are all two syllable verbs. And where does the
stress go? On the second syllable. So when you have two syllable nouns and adjectives the stress
tends to go on the first syllable. However, if it's a two-syllable verb the stress tends to go
on the second syllable. So this means if you get words that are spelled exactly the same but they
perhaps have a noun and a verb form, we change the stress. We change the pronunciation. For example:
record record, this is the noun, record record, this is the verb, record record. You hear how the
stress changes. So in some sentences "I bought a record" "I bought a record" "I'll record it later"
"I'll record it later". Here are just a few other examples, but there are plenty of other pairs
like this that go together: produce produce produce produce rebel rebel rebel rebel conflict
conflict conflict conflict. So notice how that stress changes depending on the word form. If it's
a noun or if it's a verb. Rule number four, if we have a word ending in "ic", so "ic",
the stress goes on the penultimate syllable, so if the word ends with "ic", the syllable before
that will be the stressed syllable. For example: static static barbaric barbaric enthusiastic
enthusiastic. Rule number five, words ending in "sion" or "tion" follow the same rule that we've
just talked about. So the stress doesn't go on that "tion" or "sion" ending, it goes before
it. So the syllable that's before it, we put the stress there. For example: nation nation solution
solution. So again, it doesn't matter how long the word is: obligation. The stress still goes
on that syllable before it that penultimate syllable. Obligation. Station. So of course,
if it's just two syllables, it's gonna go on that first one because it's the syllable before the
tion. Station. Rule number six, if we have words that end with, and I need to look at my list,
"cy" "ty" "phy" (so fy) "gy" or "sy", the stress goes on me antipenultimate syllable.
What does that mean? So it doesn't go on the last, it doesn't go on the one before that, it
goes on the one before that, okay? So we're gonna focus on the third one from the end. For example:
democracy. So notice that there's the stressed syllable and then there's the two after,
democracy. Hipocracy. Now a nice long one here: cinematography, cinematography.
So again, it doesn't matter how many syllables are before it, it has one of those endings,
so it follows this rule. Rule number seven, if the word ends with "-al", so a-l, it follows the
same rule that we just talked about. It goes on the anti-penultimate syllable. So not only "al",
not on the syllable before it, but on the syllable before that. For example: critical critical,
magical magical, historical historical. A longer one, economical, economical. So again,
doesn't matter what's before it, the stress still goes on the anti-penultimate syllable: economical.
Finally, rule number eight, this is probably the trickiest rule to get your head around. It's why
I've saved it for last, for the most dedicated students who stuck around to the end. We're going
to talk about sentence stress and how that affects a word's stress. So English is a stress-timed
language. What does that mean? What is a stress timed language? It essentially means that we have
two types of words: our important words that we emphasise more, and then little words in between
that are there for grammatical purposes, they're not that important, and they are weakened. So if
you listen to English it sounds something like bo bo WAA bo bo bo WAA bo bo bo WAA. And these "WAA"
words that are standing out, tend to be clearer and you understand them more easily. Let's compare
it to a syllable timed language to make it a little bit clearer what I'm talking about here.
So a syllable timed language essentially puts stress and even timing on every single syllable.
So if you listen to a language, for example, like Spanish, you'll hear it being pronounced
as something like "da da da da da da da" and I remember many years ago a tutor of
mine at university telling me that syllable timed languages sound kind of like "machine guns" like
"du du du du du". They're very even are all of the syllables. Well, if you listen to a language
like English, it's not like that. If I were to pronounce it like that "it would sound like this
and everything would be stressed" and it would sound very very robotic. So how do you know which
words are stressed? We can categorise words in English into two different groups: content words,
which are stressed, they always carry the meaning, the important parts of the sentence, the content,
and then we have the structure words, the little grammatical words that are not so important,
and they don't hold that much meaning. All of the content words would be stressed in a sentence,
the function or structure words, whatever you want to call them, these in sentences tend to be
weaker. So your content words are: nouns, adverbs, adjectives, verbs, question words (like who, what,
when, etc., at the start of a question) negative auxiliary and modal verbs, as well as negative
words like "no" and "not", etc. Your function and structure words, whatever you want to call them,
tend to be your: articles, auxiliary verbs, modal verbs, the verb "to be", pronouns,
prepositions, and conjunctions (otherwise known as "connectives"). These words tend to have,
if you look in the dictionary, a strong and a weak form. In sentences, when we're speaking naturally,
we tend to use the weak form. I'll give you an example. "I wanted to see the film". Notice that
rhythm "I wanted to see the film", you see what I was talking about earlier? "bo BObo bo BO bo BO".
You see, those words that are stressed, the intonation goes up and they're a lot clearer,
while if we look at the words in between, those little function words, you can see
that they're very very weak. I don't say "TO SEE THE" film, no no, "to see the", they become much
weaker. So these sorts of words, they tend to be pronounced with schwa sounds, like "uh". Not
always, it depends on the word, but what you'll see is it goes from "TO" to "to", "THE" to "the",
they're a lot softer and a lot weaker. Here's another example "can you help me with my homework"
"can you help me with my homework". So notice that "help" and "homework" are both stressed.
Everything else is a lot weaker and a lot softer. So we pronounce those content words a lot
stronger, while the other words, those structure words, they tend to get pronounced a little bit
weaker. If you want some more practice on this and some more information, some more examples, I do
have a video fully dedicated to this. I will leave it down in the description. Go and check it out,
it's one of my most popular videos. So I'm sure you will enjoy it and benefit from it. And that is
the end of this lesson. Please let me know in the comments which rule was new for you? Was it all of
them? Was it just one other two of them? Let me know in the comments which rule is new for you.
Remember to check out Preply if you're interested in improving your English and taking lessons with
a private teacher. Use the code "Emma" for 50% off your first lesson I'll link the description...
I'll link the description? That's the wrong way round. The link is in the description for you
to go and check out. Enjoy the rest of your week. I will see you next lesson! Bye bye!