Most non-native speakers think that their accent will improve
when they work on their pronunciation.
And they're right.
Well, sort of.
For most people, pronunciation means the articulation of sounds.
By articulation of sounds, I mean the way you move your lips, your mouth, your tongue,
and your jaw.
While these elements are important, they're not as essential as word stress.
Word stress is when we make one syllable of a word longer, louder and higher in pitch.
This is why word stress is sometimes called syllable stress.
We're talking about which syllables in a word to stress.
When we say the word stress, we mean emphasize.
Like I said, word stress is when we make one syllable of a word
longer, louder and higher in pitch.
As a quick reminder, a syllable is one beat of a word.
When we stress a syllable, we make the vowel sound in the syllable clear and easy to understand.
The reason that syllable stress is so important for clear English pronunciation is that native
English speakers are expecting to hear this syllable stressed correctly.
If you don't correctly stress a word, a native English speaker may hear that it doesn't sound
quite right, but they probably wouldn't be able to tell you why.
When you stress the wrong syllable, the word sounds off.
If you've ever noticed that a native English speaker didn't understand you, it may not
actually be your pronunciation of the word.
It may be the way you stressed a word.
A common example is the word "hotel."
I've heard a lot of non-native speakers struggle to pronounce the word "hotel"
the way we do in American English.
Some people make both syllables of the word "hotel" exactly the same length,
something like "ho-tel, ho-tel."
Other people stress the first syllable of the word "HO-tel, HO-tel."
As you can hear, that sounds a little strange in American English.
We pronounce the word "ho-TEL, ho-TEL."
Even if you pronounce the word correctly, you can get all those different consonant
sounds correct, and even the vowel, if you're not stressing the second syllable of that
word - "hotel" - it's going to sound a little off.
Let's look at another example: the word "university."
I've heard a lot of non-native speakers struggle with this word because they either make each
syllable exactly the same length - "un-i-ver-si-ty" or they pronounce the word with stress on
the first syllable: "U-ni-ver-si-ty."
If I hear someone say "U-niversity," I can decipher what they're saying if I'm listening
carefully and it makes sense in the context of the sentence.
However, the word should be pronounced "u-ni-VER-si-ty, u-ni-VER-si-ty."
As you can hear, when I stress the syllable "ver" - uniVERsity,
it's easier to understand the word.
Knowing exactly which syllable should receive stress in a word makes it easier to pronounce:
uniVERsity.
Instead of getting overwhelmed by how long the word is, look for that stressed syllable.
In just a moment, I'll give you more examples of word stress in words of different lengths.
I'll also tell you how to identify which syllable should be stressed using your favorite dictionary.
But first I want to talk about why word stress is so challenging for many non-native speakers.
Many non-native speakers struggle with word stress in English because the rhythm of their
native language is a little bit different.
Some languages are what we call syllable-timed languages.
This means that each syllable is more or less the same length.
The rhythm of the language is measured by the syllables.
On the other hand, English is what we call a stress-timed language.
The rhythm of English comes from stressed syllables.
The beats are between stressed syllables.
You may be struggling with word stress because you haven't thought about these lengthened
syllables or you may need to adjust to the rhythm of English.
It can take some time to get used to hearing the different rhythm that comes from a syllable
that is longer, louder and higher in pitch, especially if you've been speaking your native
language for decades and you're used to hearing each syllable be more or less the same length.
This is why it can take some work to start stressing words correctly in English.
However, it is well worth the effort.
You'll find when you put more attention on word stress, you're going to be more easily
understood by native English speakers.
Improving your word stress requires you to unlearn the habits you've picked up from your
native language and re-learn the habits of English.
To be honest, it can feel a little awkward to hold the syllable a little longer than
you're used to.
You may feel like it's really obvious and you may feel uncomfortable.
You may also feel a little silly making your pitch go up and down, or maybe you're not
used to changing up your volume in order to emphasize certain syllables.
But like I said, it's well worth the practice if you want a native English speaker to understand you.
You wouldn't be here if that weren't important to you.
In order to speak English more clearly, you need to pay more attention to word stress.
Whenever you learn a new word, be sure to identify the word stress pattern first.
Here's how you can identify word stress patterns.
I'm going to show you the phonetic spelling of the two words I just gave as examples,
hotel and university.
If you're not familiar with the IPA, don't worry, you don't need to know
every single detail right now.
What I want you to pay attention to are the symbols that indicate word stress in English.
You can use any online dictionary or resource and you can even search in Google.
These symbols are consistent across dictionaries.
To identify which syllable receives the most stress.
You want to look for the symbol that kind of looks like an apostrophe.
It's at the top of the word.
This symbol is going to come before the stressed syllable.
When you're pronouncing a word, you want to make sure this syllable receives the most
stress.
You want it to be longest, loudest, and highest in pitch.
If you're looking carefully, you may notice a symbol that looks somewhat like a comma
at the bottom of the word.
This identifies secondary stress.
This means that these syllables are still pretty clear, but they're not as long, loud
or high in pitch as the primary stressed syllable.
When you're getting started with word stress, don't worry too much about secondary stress.
Focusing most of your attention on primary stress will help people understand you.
As you continue to work on your accent and you continue to evolve as a non-native English
speaker, you're going to be able to add in secondary stress.
Not every word's going to have secondary stress.
It's just something to be aware of, but your attention should go to the syllable that receives
primary stress.
This is absolutely essential to correctly stressing words in English.
Native English speakers are going to be listening for this stressed syllable more than anything
else.
Now that you know how to identify primary and secondary stress using the phonetic alphabet,
let's look at a few examples.
Let's get started with one syllable words.
In my experience, many non-native speakers rush through one syllable words.
Because they're easier to say than those longer multi-syllable words.
Most people just jump over them in order to rush to the more tricky words.
But I know you're smarter than this.
I want you to pay extra attention to these one syllable words.
Of course, we do use longer words as well, but most of the words we use are simple.
So you want to make sure you pay attention to these one syllable words.
Be sure to watch my video on how to stress short words in order to speak English more
clearly.
I'll include a link in the cards and also in the description below the video.
So now that I've convinced you to pay attention to one syllable words,
let's look at some examples.
Let's start with the word "time" - time.
Many non-native speakers rush through that word, but as you can hear, the word "time" is
stressed - time.
I pronounce the word "time" by lengthening the vowel sound, making it louder, and also
making it higher in pitch: time, time.
Another common example is "school" - school.
This word is tricky for a lot of non-native speakers, but if you put extra emphasis on
lengthening that vowel sound - school, school - moving your mouth through all those different
shapes, it's going to be clear and easy for a native English speaker to understand:
school, school.
Can you hear the difference?
Remember, don't rush through those words.
Make sure to make them longer, louder and higher in pitch.
Now, let's look at two syllable words.
Let's talk about the word "today" - today.
As you can hear, I'm emphasizing the second syllable, "day."
That vowel sound is super clear and easy to understand.
It's longer, louder and higher in pitch: to-DAY, to-DAY.
Here's another example: patient, patient.
In the word "patient," I'm emphasizing the first syllable: PA-tient.
Even though you can still hear all the sounds in the second syllable, the first syllable
is the clearest and the easiest to understand: PA-tient, PA-tient.
Let's move on to three syllable words.
Let's talk about the word "analyze" - analyze.
As you can hear, the word "analyze" is stressed on the first syllable: AN-al-yze, AN-al-yze.
That means that the vowel sound is the clearest and the easiest to hear: AN-al-yze, AN-al-yze.
As you can hear, I'm making that first syllable longer, louder and higher in pitch.
Here is another example: attention, attention.
As you can hear, I'm stressing "ten": at-TEN-tion, at-TEN-tion.
You can hear a difference between the stressed and unstressed syllables.
At this point, you may be asking me, "What about the syllables that aren't stressed?
What happens to those?"
As I've been explaining, the vowel sounds on stressed syllables are
the clearest and easiest to understand.
On vowels that receive secondary stress, they are still clear and easy to understand, but
they aren't the clearest.
They're just a slight bit below.
When syllables are unstressed, their vowel sound is still clear,
but you really don't hear them as much.
And then we even have what we call reduced syllables.
When syllables are reduced, they're reduced to either the schwa sound - the "uh" sound
in about, about - or they're reduced to the "i" sound, like in my name.
This will vary based on regional accents and it will depend on the word so you really have
to listen carefully to which sound it's reduced to.
But since the sounds are reduced, you don't really want to
make those vowel sounds really easy to understand.
You'll be able to hear this a little bit more when I go through the longer examples.
Moving on, let's talk about four syllable words.
Let's start with the word "experience" - experience.
Can you hear which syllable is being stressed in "experience"?
Experience, experience.
As you can hear, it's the second syllable: ex-PER-i-ence, ex-PER-i-ence.
In the word "experience," the second syllable is the clearest, the easiest to hear because
it's the longest, the loudest, and the highest in pitch.
However, the other unstressed syllables, you can still hear the vowel sounds.
They're just not as distinct: experience, experience.
Next, let's look at everyone's favorite word, "education" - education, education.
As you can hear, I'm stressing the second to last syllable: e-du-CA-tion, e-du-CA-tion.
You can hear a difference - my pitch rises to the stressed syllable and then falls back
down afterwards: education, education.
Have you noticed a relationship between the word "attention" and "education"?
If you're listening carefully, you may notice that words that end in -tion have a particular
stress pattern: attention, education.
The syllable before the -tion is stressed.
In order to continue to develop your word stress,
you want to try to identify these patterns.
While there are no rules that are true a hundred percent of the time for word stress, you will
be able to pick up on patterns and that will help you reduce your accent in English.
Last but not least, let's talk about five syllable words.
We already mentioned one, "university" - university.
Like I said earlier, looking for the stressed syllable in these longer multi-syllable words
makes it easier to pronounce: university, university.
Here's another word: communication, communication.
You may have noticed that's another -tion word, and that means that
the syllable before -tion is stressed: com-mu-ni-CA-tion, com-mu-ni-CA-tion.
Like I said a moment ago, this is a pattern that you can practice.
However, you may hear some words that don't follow this particular stress pattern.
When you identify where the stress is on these longer words,
you can often figure out the pronunciation.
That's why I encourage you to pay more attention to word stress.
Even better tune your ear to word stress.
Listen for the syllable of a word that is longest, loudest and highest in pitch.
This will help you start to decipher how to pronounce it.
Of course, you can always check to be sure by looking in a dictionary, but the sooner
you can tune your ear to listening to this stress, the quicker you're going to be able
to pronounce words more like a native speaker.
If you'd like more guidance on word and sentence stress, I encourage you to check out my programs
that are listed in the description of these videos.
In my opinion, stress accounts for 60 to 75 percent of your accent in English.
When you start to master word and sentence stress, you'll start to sound even more like
a native English speaker.
I have plenty of drills that you can work with.
If you truly want to sound like a native English speaker,
be sure to pay attention to word stress.
I encourage you to check out my other videos related to word and sentence stress, which
will be included in the description below the video and also in the cards.
Although you may feel a little disappointed that there aren't any rules you can follow
100 percent of the time, tuning your ear to hear the rhythm of English
is really going to go a long way.
Tuning your ear to word stress will help you understand native English speakers.
We stress syllables on the words that are most important.
By listening for this stress, you're going to be able to understand
what you should be listening to in English.
And just a quick note, there is a difference in word stress
between British and American English.
Some words or stressed the same and some are stressed differently.
When you're practicing word stress, be sure to practice the same accent.
It will make life a lot easier.
We can understand the differences in your pronunciation, but it would be a little strange
to mix different versions of English.
I encourage you to watch this video a few times and practice along with the examples.
It can take some time to get comfortable with the natural rhythm of English, especially
if your native language uses stress differently or it doesn't exist at all.
If you have any questions about word stress, be sure to leave a comment below the video.
To practice, I encourage you to look up the word stress pattern
for a word you find challenging.
Leave a comment below the video, let me know which word you're struggling with, and emphasize
which syllable should be stressed in that particular word.
I'll let you know if you're correct.
If you have any additional questions, let me know in the comments.
I'll be making more videos on stress and intonation and
I'd love to hear what you need more help with.
Once again I'm Kim from englishwithkim.com.
I'm your guide to the essential conversation skills you need to sound more natural in English.
If you like this video, please give it a thumbs up and share it with a friend.
Have a good one.
Goodbye.