What is Word Stress?

In English, we do not say each syllable with the same force or strength. In one word, we accentuate ONE syllable. We say one syllable very loudly (big, strong, important) and all the other syllables veryquietly. Let's take 3 words: photograph, photographer and photographic. Do they sound the same when spoken? No. Because we accentuate (stress) ONE syllable in each word. And it is not always the same syllable. So the shape of each word is different. click word to hear shape total syllables stressed syllable

PHO TO GRAPH

#1

PHO TO GRAPH ER

#2

PHO TO GRAPH IC

#3

This happens in ALL words with 2 or more syllables: TEACHer, JaPAN, CHINa, aBOVE, converSAtion, INteresting, imPORtant, deMAND, etCETera, etCETera, etCETera The syllables that are not stressed are weak or small or quiet. Native speakers of English listen for the STRESSED syllables, not the weak syllables. If you use word stress in your speech, you will instantly and automatically improve your pronunciation and your comprehension. Try to hear the stress in individual words each time you listen to English - on the radio, or in films for example. Your first step is to HEAR and recognise it. After that, you can USE it! There are two very important rules about word stress: 1. One word, one stress. (One word cannot have two stresses. So if you hear two stresses, you have heard two words, not one word.) 2. The stress is always on a vowel.

Why is Word Stress Important?

Word stress is not used in all languages. Some languages, Japanese or French for example, pronounce each syllable with eq-ual em-pha-sis.

Other languages, English for example, use word stress.

Word stress is not an optional extra that you can add to the English language if you want. It is part of the language! English speakers use word stress to communicate rapidly and accurately, even in difficult conditions. If, for example, you do not hear a word clearly, you can still understand the word because of the position of the stress.

Think again about the two words photograph and photographer. Now imagine that you are speaking to somebody by telephone over a very bad line. You cannot hear clearly. In fact, you hear only the first two syllables of one of these words, photo... Which word is it, photograph or photographer? Of course, with word stress you will know immediately which word it is because in reality you will hear either PHOto... or phoTO... So without hearing the whole word, you probably know what the word is ( PHOto...graph or phoTO...grapher). It's magic! (Of course, you also have the 'context' of your conversation to help you.)

This is a simple example of how word stress helps us understand English. There are many, many other examples, because we use word stress all the time, without thinking about it.

Where do I Put the Word Stress? >

Where do I Put Word Stress?

There are some rules about which syllable to stress. But...the rules are rather complicated! Probably the best way to learn is from experience. Listen carefully to spoken English and try to develop a feeling for the "music" of the language. When you learn a new word, you should also learn its stress pattern. If you keep a vocabulary book, make a note to show which syllable is stressed. If you do not know, you can look in a dictionary. All dictionaries give the phonetic spelling of a word. This is where they show which syllable is stressed, usually with an apostrophe (') just before or just after the stressed syllable. (The notes at the front of the dictionary will explain the system used.) Look at (and listen to) this example for the word plastic. There are 2 syllables. Syllable #1 is stressed. example phonetic spelling: phonetic spelling: dictionary A dictionary B

PLAS TIC /pls'tIk/ /'pls tIk/

Rules of Word Stress in English

There are two very simple rules about word stress: 1. One word has only one stress. (One word cannot have two stresses. If you hear two stresses, you hear two words. Two stresses cannot be one word. It is true that there can be a "secondary" stress in some words. But a secondary stress is much smaller than the main [primary] stress, and is only used in long words.)

2. We can only stress vowels, not consonants. Here are some more, rather complicated, rules that can help you understand where to put the stress. But do not rely on them too much, because there are many exceptions. It is better to try to "feel" the music of the language and to add the stress naturally. 1 Stress on first syllable rule Example

Most 2-syllable nouns

PRESent, EXport, CHIna, TAble

Most 2-syllable adjectives 2 Stress on last syllable rule

PRESent, SLENder, CLEVer, HAPpy

Example

Most 2-syllable verbs

to preSENT, to exPORT, to deCIDE, to beGIN

There are many two-syllable words in English whose meaning and class change with a change in stress. The word present, for example is a two-syllable word. If we stress the first syllable, it is a noun (gift) or an adjective (opposite of absent). But if we stress the second syllable, it becomes a verb (to offer). More examples: the words export, import, contract and objectcan all be nouns or verbs depending on whether the stress is on the first or second syllable. 3 Stress on penultimate syllable (penultimate = second from end) rule Example

Words ending in -ic

GRAPHic, geoGRAPHic, geoLOGic

Words ending in -sion and -tion

teleVIsion, reveLAtion

For a few words, native English speakers don't always "agree" on where to put the stress. For example, some people say teleVIsion and others say TELevision. Another example is:CONtroversy and conTROversy. 4 Stress on ante-penultimate syllable (ante-penultimate = third from end) rule Example

Words ending in -cy, -ty, -phy and -gy

deMOcracy, dependaBIlity, phoTOgraphy, geOLogy

Words ending in -al

CRItical, geoLOGical

5 Compound words (words with two parts) Rule example

For compound nouns, the stress is on the first part

BLACKbird, GREENhouse

For compound adjectives, the stress is on the second part

bad-TEMpered, old-FASHioned

For compound verbs, the stress is on the second part

to underSTAND, to overFLOW

Understanding Syllables To understand word stress, it helps to understand syllables. Every word is made from syllables. Each word has one, two, three or more syllables. word number of syllables

dog

dog

green

green

quite

quite

quiet

qui-et

orange

or-ange

table

ta-ble

expensive

ex-pen-sive

interesting

in-ter-est-ing

realistic

re-al-is-tic

unexceptional

un-ex-cep-tion-al

Notice that (with a few rare exceptions) every syllable contains at least one vowel (a, e, i, o or u) orvowel sound.

Word Stress Quiz

1 2 3

Can you pass me a plastic knife? I want to take a photography class. China is the place where I was born.

4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Please turn off the television before you go out. I can't decide which book to borrow. Do you understand this lesson? Sparky is a very happy puppy. It is critical that you finish your essay. My Grandfather wears an old-fashioned coat. There is a lot of traffic on the highway today.

Introduction to English Word Stress

All words of more than one syllable have what is called word stress. This means that at least one of the syllables is l o n g e r and louder than the other syllables.

In many cases, word stress must simply be learned as new vocabulary is acquired. However, there are several rules for word stress which can make it easier to deal with.

In this unit, you will learn these rules and practice hearing and predicting word stress.

Directions: Listen to the audio clips. Which syllable is longer and louder than the others? photograph ? pho

? ?

to graph

photographic ? ? ? ? pho to gra phic

photography ? ? ? ? pho to gra phy

committee ? ? ? com mit tee

volunteer ? vol

? ?

un teer

Maryland Marylandwd.ra ? ? ? Mar y land

society ? ? ? ? so ci e ty

demonstration ? ? ? ? dem on stra tion

character ? cha

? ?

rac ter

referee ? ? ? ref er ee

Pronunciation: Changing Meaning through Word Stress Word Stress Explanation and Exercise By Kenneth Beare, About.com Guide See More About:improving pronunciationword stresssentence structure Sponsored Links Learn English Free Start Speaking and Listening. Practice with Native Speakers! www.Livemocha.com UK Border Agency Approved Have You Married From Pakistan ? English Language Test in Pakistan www.embassytestcentre.co.uk Learn a British Accent Master a British accent in just 15 min/day. Only 29.97. Start NOW... www.SpeakMoreClearly.com

English as 2nd Language Ads English Lessons English Grammar Learning English Spoken English English Language When you are speaking English the words you stress can change the underlying meaning of a sentence. Let's take a look at the following sentence: I don't think he should get the job.

This simple sentence can have many levels of meaning based on the word you stress. Consider the meaning of the following sentences with the stressed word in bold. Read each sentence aloud and give a strong stress to the word in bold:

I don't think he should get the job. Meaning: Somebody else thinks he should get the job.

I don't think he should get the job. Meaning: It's not true that I think he should get the job.

I don't think he should get that job. Meaning: That's not really what I mean. OR I'm not sure he'll get that job.

I don't think he should get that job. Meaning: Somebody else should get that job.

I don't think he should get that job. Meaning: In my opinion it's wrong that he's going to get that job.

I don't think he should get that job. Meaning: He should have to earn (be worthy of, work hard for) that job.

I don't think he should get that job. Meaning: He should get another job.

I don't think he should get that job. Meaning: Maybe he should get something else instead.

As you can see, there are many different ways this sentence can be understood. The important point to remember is that the true meaning of the sentence is also expressed through the stressed word or words.

Here is an exercise to help you develop the art of correct word stress. Take the following sentence:

I said she might consider a new haircut.

Say the sentence aloud using the stress word marked in bold. Once you have spoken the sentence a few times, match the sentence version to the meaning below. You will find the answers to this quiz on the following page.

I said she might consider a new haircut. I said she might consider a new haircut. I said she might consider a new haircut. I said she might consider a new haircut. I said she might consider a new haircut. I said she might consider a new haircut. I said she might consider a new haircut. Not just a haircut. It's a possibility. It was my idea. Not something else. Don't you understand me? Not another person. She should think about it. it's a good idea. Exercise: Write out a number of sentences. Read each of them stressing a different word each time you read them. Notice how the meaning changes depending on which word you stress. Don't be afraid to exaggerate the stress, in English we often use this device to add meaning to a sentence. It's very possible that when you think you are exaggerating, it will sound quite natural to native speakers.

Pronunciation: Changing Meaning through Word Stress Exercise Answers By Kenneth Beare, About.com Guide See More About:improving pronunciationword stresssentence structure Sponsored Links Learn English Online Free Mejora tu ingls en solo 3 minutos diarios. Fcil, gratis, divertido! Voxy.com/Ingles (Continued from Page 1) Answers to the word stress exercise: I said she might consider a new haircut. It was my idea. I said she might consider a new haircut. Don't you understand me? I said she might consider a new haircut. Not another person. I said she might consider a new haircut. It's a possibility. I said she might consider a new haircut. She should think about it. it's a good idea. I said she might consider a new haircut.

Not just a haircut. I said she might consider a new haircut. Not something else.

Activity
he Bell Game challenges students to pronounce target lesson words correctly in a competitive game. You'll need a deck of cards that contains each target word for the lesson(s), and two small bells. The goal of the activity is given a written regular word, the student can say the word with automaticity.

Aim: Word form recognition together with pronunciation

Activity: Competitive bell game in small groups

Level: Children

Outline:

Divide students into two teams. Have the first player from each team come up to a desk at the front of the room. Place two bells on the desk, one for each player.

Use the following introduction: Today we are going to play The Bell Game. When I show you a word card, the first person to ring her bell and read the word correctly gets one point for her team. Make sure that you read the word before you ring your bell. If you ring your bell, but cannot read the word immediately, within one second, your team will lose a point. Therefore, it is important that you read the word silently before you hit your bell. If you read the word incorrectly, the player on the opposite team gets a chance to read the word, but this time for two points instead of one. If both players miss the word, call on someone else in the class to give the players a hand. In this scenario, no points are awarded. Have a new set of players come to the board every round or every other round.

Word stress is absolutely one of the most important features of English pronunciation. That means that having clear and accurate word stress is essential for intelligible speech, i.e. in order to be easily understood. Did you know that it is often harder for native English speakers to understand people who put stress on the wrong syllables in a word, than to understand people who mispronounce some vowels or consonants? Its true! In part, this is because it influences every word that has more than just one syllable. (Suggestion: watch my Teaching Syllables video first, and teach that lesson to your students, then come back and do this one!)

So how can you teach it in a fun and effective way? Use a rubber (elastic) band! In this video Ill show you how to use a rubber band to help your students of any proficiency level learn to hear and produce word stress correctly. Beginner students need to learn correct word stress the first time they hear new vocabulary, so they develop good habits and clear pronunciation from the start. Advanced learners need to resensitize their ability to hear and produce accurate word stress in order to modify their pronunciation and overall clarity of words they already know, as well as with new vocabulary.

It is important to teach students about word-stress before sentence-level stress (e.g. for irony, emphasis, contrast, etc.) This is because word-stress is generally stable; a word will always be stressed on the same syllable. But any word in a sentence might be stressed depending on the context. So its much easier to teach about stress on stable words than unstable phrases and sentences.

First, watch the video (coming soon!)

After watching the video, make sure to download my basic lesson plan (PDF), and make any adjustments you think will make it perfect for your own students.

Once youve introduced your students to word-stress, tell us how it went. How did you personalize this lesson? If you used something else instead of a rubber band, what was it? Or if you think you would do something differently next time, what would it be? As always, your peer teachers would love to know, so leave us a comment.

Have fun!

Exercise 2: Word Stress Crossword

by Holly Gray

Click on a number in the grid to see the clue or clues for that number. Listen to the audio clip. Complete the crossword, then click on "Check" to check your answer. If you are stuck, you can click on "Hint" to get a free letter.

Word List

dessert desert committee comedy Missouri Misery oregon organ history his story personal personnel

The differences between English and Spanish

Introduction: Spanish is a Romance language and part of the Indo-European language family. It is closely related to Italian and Portuguese. Spanish is a major language, with up to 400 million native speakers in Spain, Latin America and the USA.

Alphabet: Spanish uses the Latin alphabet. The vowels can take an acute accent, and there is the additional letter . When spelling English words or writing them from the teacher's dictation, beginning Spanish students may make mistakes with the English vowels a, e, i. The consonants h, j, r, y may also cause trouble, since they have significantly different names in Spanish.

The English writing system itself causes no particular problems to Spanish learners. Beginners, however, may be tempted to punctuate questions or exclamations as follows, since this is how it is done in Spanish: What is your name? / What a goal! Punctuation of direct speech may also be a problem because quotation marks are not used in Spanish.

Phonology: The phonological system of Spanish is significantly different from that of English, particularly in the aspects of vowel sounds and sentence stress. These differences are very serious obstacles to Spanish learners being able to acquire a native-English-speaker accent. Coe (1987) says:

"European Spanish speakers, in particular, probably find English pronunciation harder than speakers of any other European language." Spanish has 5 pure vowels and 5 dipthongs. The length of the vowel is not significant in distinguishing between words. This contrasts with English, which has 12 pure vowel sounds and 8 dipthongs. The length of the vowel sound plays an important role. It is not surprising, therefore, that Spanish learners may have great difficulty in producing or even perceiving the various English vowel sounds. Specific problems include the failure to distinguish the sounds in words such as ship/sheep, taught/tot, fool/full or cart/cat/cut.

Producing English consonant sounds is not so problematic for many Spanish learners, but difficult enough! They may have problems in the following aspects:

failure to pronounce the end consonant accurately or strongly enough ; e.g. cart for the English word card or brish for bridge or thing for think problems with the /v/ in words such as vowel or revive difficulties in sufficently distinguishing words such as see/she or jeep/sheep/cheap the tendency to prefix words beginning with a consonant cluster on s- with an // sound; so, for example, school becomes eschool and strip becomes estrip the swallowing of sounds in other consonant clusters; examples: next becomes nes and instead becomes istead. Spanish is a syllable-timed language. When Spanish speakers transfer the intonation patterns of their mother tongue into English, which is a stress-timed language, the result can be barely comprehensible to native English speakers. This is because the meaning or information usually conveyed in English by the combination of stress, pitch and rhythm in a sentence is flattened or evened out by the Spanish learner.

Grammar - Verb/Tense: Although Spanish is a much more heavily inflected language than English, there are many aspects of verb grammar that are similar. The major problem for the Spanish learner is that there is no one-to-one correspondence in the use of the tenses. So, for example, a Spanish learner might incorrectly use a simple tense instead of a progressive or a future one: She has a shower instead of She's having a shower; I help you after school instead of I'll help you after school. Problematic for beginners is the formation of interrogatives or negatives in English. The absence of an auxiliary in such structures in Spanish may cause learners to say: Why you say that? / Who he saw? / Do you saw him? / I no see him. / I not saw him.

Grammar - Other: Spanish word order is generally Subject-Verb-Object, like English. However, Spanish allows more flexibility than English, and generally places at the end of the sentence words that are to be emphasised. This may result in non-standard syntax when Spanish learners speak or write English.

There are numerous other minor differences in the two languages that may result in negative transfer. Here are a few examples. The way that things are done in Spanish can be inferred from the mistake in English:

Do you have sister? It's not easy learn English. Where's my pencil? Have you seen him? I am more tall than my brother. Was snowing when I got up. She took off the glasses. Vocabulary: Due to shared Latin influence English and Spanish have many cognates, and the corresponding collection of false friends, such as eventual (English translation > possible) or particular (English translation > private). Since the Latin-derived words in English tend to be more formal, the Spanish student will benefit when reading academic text. He or she may sound too formal, however, if using such words in everyday spoken English. Conversely, phrasal verbs, which are an essential aspect of colloquial English, are difficult for Spanish learners and may obstruct listening comprehension.

Long noun groups such as the standard language classroom teacher-student interaction pattern, commonly found in academic English text, are troublesome for Spanish speakers, whose language post-modifies nouns.

Miscellaneous: Spanish has a strong correspondence between the sound of a word and its spelling. The irregularity of English in this respect causes predictable problems when Spanish learners write a word they first meet in spoken language or say a word first met in written language. A specific problem concerns the spelling of English words with double letters. Spanish has only 3 double-letter combinations cc, ll, rr. English, in comparison, has 5 times as many. Spanish learners often reduce English double letters to a single one, or overcompensate by doubling a letter unnecessarily; for example hopping for the present participle of hope.

Reference: Coe, N. in Swan, M. & Smith, B. Learner English: A teacher's guide to interference and other problems. (1987) Cambridge University Press.

English Stress Exercises By Bryan Cohen, eHow Contributor updated: May 16, 2010

Learning to stress English words and sentences Word stress is a difficult concept for ESL (English Second Language) students to pick up on when becoming familiar with English. Word stress comes in two different forms. The first is how you stress words in the context of a sentence. The other is how you stress syllables within a word itself. Both types of stress require a lot of practice and patience. Make sure to progress slowly with students who become easily frustrated. Enough time and effort will solidify these concepts in nearly all ESL students.

Parts of Speech

Complete this activity after explaining the concepts of parts of speech in English. Parts of speech include the noun, verb, pronoun, adjective, adverb, conjunction, preposition and the interjection. You can also introduce parts of a sentence like the direct object and types of verbs like the auxiliary verb. Give students a handout of two people talking about any subject. You may wish to make the dialogue emotional, as in an argument, to make the sentence stress more evident. Have the students circle the words that have the most stress in each sentence. Discuss what words were chosen afterward and if the students noticed any patterns in which parts of speech were chosen.

Predictions For this exercise, you will need a tape or CD with two or more people talking in an audio track, along with copies of the script of that audio track. Hand out the script to your students, and instruct them to circle one or two words in each sentence that they expect the audio to stress. After they have completed, have them listen to the tape and underline the words that the tape stressed. Discuss with them the predictions that they made and how well the students guessed. This exercise can help students to understand how to listen more effectively to spoken English.

Stresses and Meanings Give students a simple sentence to read on a sheet of paper such as "I asked you to buy me a bunch of red roses." Separate them into pairs, and ask them to read the sentence to each other while emphasizing different words. One time they read the sentence they will emphasize "I" another time they'll emphasize "ask" and so on. Have them discuss how the meaning has changed in each sentence based on what word they emphasized. You can also give each different pair a different sentence to work on and have them discuss to the class how the different stresses changed the sentences.

Word Stress

Do this exercise with two syllable words for beginning ESL students or for longer words with more advanced students. Have your students attempt to say the word "suppose." Write the word on the board and put a small circle around the first syllable and a big circle around the second syllable to show that they should stress the second syllable. Ask the students to come up with other words that are two syllables that receive second-syllable stress. Some you may receive are "outside" and "behind," and you may want to ask for verbs to stimulate students to say words like "believe," "accept" and "forget." Have them practice saying the words with the correct emphasis.

Read more: English Stress Exercises | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/list_6520648_englishstress-exercises.html#ixzz1HIpcOnMT

he Bell Game challenges students to pronounce target lesson words correctly in a competitive game. You'll need a deck of cards that contains each target word for the lesson(s), and two small bells. The goal of the activity is given a written regular word, the student can say the word with automaticity.

Aim: Word form recognition together with pronunciation

Activity: Competitive bell game in small groups

Level: Children

Outline:

Divide students into two teams. Have the first player from each team come up to a desk at the front of the room. Place two bells on the desk, one for each player. Use the following introduction: Today we are going to play The Bell Game. When I show you a word card, the first person to ring her bell and read the word correctly gets one point for her team. Make sure that you read the word before you ring your bell. If you ring your bell, but cannot read the word immediately, within one second, your team will lose a point. Therefore, it is important that you read the word silently before you hit your bell. If you read the word incorrectly, the player on the opposite team gets a chance to read the word, but this time for two points instead of one. If both players miss the word, call on someone else in the class to give the players a hand. In this scenario, no points are awarded. Have a new set of players come to the board every round or every other round.