Stress and Rhythm in English Pronunciation
Stress and Rhythm in English
Part 1
English Pronunciation Lesson
Series on Stress and Rhythm in English
Introduction
Many students think that learning English is about learning grammar, vocabulary, consonants and vowels. These form the basic foundation of a language, however, if you want to be understood when speaking American English, and if you want to understand native speakers, it is essential that you speak with the music of English, with stress and rhythm.
Stress
Stressing means that speakers of English make certain syllables and words:
• louder
• longer
• higher in pitch
Basically, stressing means to emphasize a sound.
Every word in English has just one syllable with a primary stress or emphasis.
However, it is not only essential to stress certain syllables and words, but we must also de-stress other syllables and words.
De-Stress
De-stressing means that speakers of English make certain syllables and words:
• more relaxed
• weaker
• shorter
Examples | Listen & Repeat
Engineer → [ɛn gə NIYR]
(2nd syllable is de-stressed; 3rd syllable is stressed)
English → [IN glɪʃ]
(1st syllable is stressed; 2nd syllable is medium stress)
Photograph → [FOW də græf]
(1st syllable is stressed, 2nd syllable de-stressed, 3rd syllable is secondary stress)
Stressing and de-stressing syllables and words gives us rhythm in English. 🎶
Rhythm 🎶
Rhythm is the musicality of English—the ups and downs and the connected speech and the linking of words—which together, change how we say sentences.
Remember, speaking with correct rhythm (musicality) is essential to being understood when you speak!
Rhythm comes from the combination of the two types of stress in English:
1) Syllable stress in words (as discussed above)
2) Word stress in sentences.
Word Stress in Sentences
Americans stress words in sentences that are important to the meaning of the sentence. They carry the content of the sentence.
Basically, if you took these content words out of the sentence, you would not understand the meaning of that sentence.
Content Words:
Nouns (“dog”)
Main Verbs (“walk”)
Adjectives (“beautiful”)
Adverbs (“quickly”)
Interjections (“wow!”)
Negatives (“not”)
Wh-words (“what”)
Examples | Listen & Repeat
“I HAVE to GO to SCHOOL.”
“I WANT my BROTHER to WIN.”
“It’s NOT the BEST IDEA.”
De-Stress
Remember, rhythm and musicality in your speech is not just about stressing, but also requires de-stressing, weakening.
In English we de-stress the non-essential, non-content words in a sentence, called the function words. These function words are made weaker, and sometimes practically disappear from a sentence.
Function Words:
Articles (“the“, “a“)
Auxiliary verbs (“has“, “can“)
Pronouns (“he”, “her”)
Prepositions (“of”, “to”)
Conjunctions (“and”, “but”)
Listen and Repeat
(Function words written in lower case)
“I HAVE to GO to SCHOOL.”
“I WANT my BROTHER to WIN.”
“It’s NOT the BEST IDEA.”
Notice, I did NOT say, “I HAVE TO GO TO SCHOOL”, but I said “I HAVE to GO to SCHOOL” [ɑiy HÆV təGOW təSKUWL].
I said the function words:
• quicker; and
• more relaxed
than the important content words.
They almost become part of the content words that follow them
[təGOW]
[təSKUWL].
If I left out the non-essential function words from my sentences, you would still understand the general idea of what I’m saying.
Examples
*HAVE GO SCHOOL
*WANT BROTHER WIN
*NOT BEST IDEA
In fact, we hear children speak like this all the time when they’re learning to speak English, and we still understand their basic messages.
Listen and Repeat
“She WANTS to PLAY a GAME.”
“I’d LIKE you to JOIN us for DINner.”
“We’ll CHOOSE the WINner on SATurday or SUNday.”
“MAny of the STUdents are GOing on vaCAtion toMOrrow.”
Series on Stress and Rhythm in English
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