Are you looking for help with how to prepare for ielts speaking test?
Do you want to feel more confident and reach for Band 9?
Even if you just want improve your English pronunciation, in this video, these are exactly
the things that I'm going to help you to do.
So, this is part 2 of a 6 part video series to help you prepare for the ielts speaking
test, and more specifically, pronunciation.
Which means that even if you’re not preparing for the ielts speaking test this will be just
as useful.
The last video was about pronunciation of vowels and consonants to help you feel much
more confident with the way you’re pronouncing words so that you’re clearer in speech.
So, if you haven’t seen that video yet, then click this link and it’ll take you
to that video and I’ll wait right here while you catch up.
And if you've seen that video however, then you'll know that this video is about word
stress - the way in which we emphasis parts of a word.
And it’s really important because getting the wrong stress in a word in English can
actually change the meaning so it’s vital if you want to get top marks.
Now the first thing to know about word stress, is that words are split up into what are called
units, and they’re called syllables.
You might already know about this.
Now a syllable is essentially a part of a word that contains a vowel sound and there
may or may not be a consonant before it or after it, we may even have two or three consonants
before it or after it.
But it’s the presence of a vowel that defines a unit of speech, a syllable in speech.
So we’ve got words like ‘at’ and ‘to’, ‘if’, and I know that those are just words
in and of themselves but they are single syllable words and another name for those are mono-syllabic
words.
Now when we have more than one syllable in a word, like ‘ahead’ for instance, or
‘amended’ then they are called poly-syllabic words or some people call them multi-syllable
words.
So here are some examples of those:
a.head - two syllables a.men.ded - three syllables
ra.di.at.or - four syllables a.bbre.vi.a.ted - five syllables
au.tho.ri.ta.ri.an - six syllables
Now this is where word stress comes in - because in polysyllabic words in English we tend to
only stress one syllables in a word.
So, in a word like ‘ahead’, ‘HEAD’ is the stressed syllable and the ‘a’ at
the beginning is unstressed.
In ‘amended’, ‘MEN’ is the stressed syllable and the ‘a’ at the beginning
and the ‘ded’ at the end are unstressed.
Now, the way in which we indicate that that part of the word in stressed in English is
by changing the pitch of the voice, and specifically changing the pitch of the voice upwards.
So have a listen to this: ‘a.HEAD’; ‘a.HEAD’.
Can you hear that?
‘dudaah’, ‘dudaah’: the pitch of my voice goes upwards.
’a.MEN.ded’; ‘a.MEN.ded’.
Yeah, that’s the stressed part of the word and I’m changing the pitch of my voice.
Here are some more examples:
RA.di.a.tor a.BBRE.vi.a.ted
au.tho.ri.TA.ri.an a.MEN.ded
WON.der.ful al.THOUGH
GE.ni.us in.CRE.di.bly
frus.TRA.ting
al.THOUGH you are a GE.ni.us you are in.CRE.di.bly frus.TRA.ting
Now, the question I know that you’re asking yourself, and if you’re not then you should,
is ‘how do I know which syllable in a words to stress?’.
And this is important because a lot of non-native speakers tend to either stress the wrong syllable
in a word or they stress too many syllables in a word.
And it can make their speech sound unclear and unnatural.
So, I’m going to give you 4 patterns to follow, which will really help you to understand
which syllable to stress in a word.
But just before I do that, one great and easy way to double check which syllable in a word
to stress is to look for this little line in the phonetic transcription of a word.
The Oxford dictionary online is a free website that gives you this transcription.
And this little line means that the following syllable in that word is the stressed syllable.
So for ‘abbreviated’ the stressed syllable is ‘BRE’ - əˈbriːvɪeɪtɪd.
Can you see that little line before the ‘b’? ‘a.BBRE.vi.a.ted’ that’s the stressed
part.
In a word like ‘wonderful’, the stressed syllable is actually the first one just before
the ‘w’: so it’s ‘WON’ - ‘wonderful’ ˈwʌndəfʊl.
So, that’s a way you can check absolutely any word, but as promised, here are those
4 patterns you can follow:
Pattern 1 - Two-syllable verbs
So, often, in two syllable verbs it’s the second syllable that is stressed.
So in words like:
a.TTACK pro.VOKE en.TICE
The second Pattern is for Two-syllable nouns and adjectives
Where, it is often the first syllable in the two syllable noun or adjective that is stressed:
TA.ble SO.fa HA.ppy LONE.ly
Pattern 3 is for words with three or more syllables ending in ‘ic’, ‘sion’ and
‘tion’
And in these sorts of words the stress often falls on what’s called the penultimate syllable
(the one before last).
So for instance:
a.po.lo.GE.tic de.CI.sion con.DI.tion
And the last pattern is for words that have four or more syllables ending in either ‘cy’,
‘ty’, ‘phy’, ‘gy’ and ‘al’.
And in these sorts of words the stress often falls on what’s called the antepenultimate
syllable (which is the second before last).
So for instance:
e.MER.gen.cy i.DEN.ti.ty ge.O.gra.phy a.PO.lo.gy ex.CEP.tion.al
So if you ‘d like to learn more about how to prepare for ielts speaking test then click
here, it’ll take you to the next video.
But if you’d like to learn more about word stress then click here for a free download
that Ive created which will give you everything you need to know about word stress in preparation
for the ielts speaking test - the pronunciation part.
It’s got loads of free practice sentences, and words, loads of audio and a secret bonus
so click here and download that right now.
Just before you do that however, if you liked this video then click like so that you can
find it easily again, and consider subscribing to this channel because I post weekly videos
here every Tuesday at 8.30pm GMT (local London time).
So, I hope to see you next week.