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Pronunciation , Lesson 3 - Stress in American English

Chihiro Hi everyone, I'm Chihiro and you're listening to

English Pronunciation Series Lesson 3 - Stress in
American English
Ryan Hi everyone, I'm Ryan, and thanks for joining us again.
We hope you find this lesson just as informative as the
previous lessons. We're moving on now to sentence
stress, so we're moving on to the bigger picture in the
English language.
Chihiro Right. You might find this lesson interesting even if
you already have a solid knowledge in English. If you
don't, it will give you a head start.
Ryan Now, as you may or may not know, English is a stress
language. This means that every word has at least one
syllable that is more audible than the rest of the
syllables. A syllable being the part of a word which can
be said in one beat.
Chihiro When we stress the wrong syllable, the word may be
harder to understand. Also, stress only falls on vowels
and not consonants.
Ryan For example, the word "star" has one-syllable, and one
1 Chihiro
stress. Over the "a". "Star"
A two syallabic word such as "lesson" also has one
stress. This one is on the first syllable. "Lesson"
Ryan Another two syllabic word is "forget". This one has a
stress on the second syllable. "Forget"
Chihiro Now where would the stress be on a word such as
"calendar"? Can you guess? It's on the first one again.
"Calendar".
Ryan The sound that we emphasize the most is the stress, and
it also is the syllable that lasts the longest for many
words.
Chihiro Now, when the stress is changed, it could change the
word itself. Here are examples of words with functional
difference when we change the stress
Ryan "increase" is a noun, and "increase" is a verb
Chihiro Right, the noun "increase" has the stress on the first
syllable, and the verb "increase" has the stress on the
second syllable.
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Ryan And here's an example of how sometimes it's hard to

understand different accents.
Chihiro The word is pronounced "aluminum" in American
English, but I believe the accent falls on the third
syllable for British and sounds like "aluminium".
There's also a spelling difference too!
Ryan Mmm... insteresting! That's why sometimes it's
interesting to see an American and British person talk.
And see how they can misunderstand each other. And
then get frustrated. It's pretty funny. But anyways, some
words may have a secondary stress as well, such as the
word "pronunciation." It may seem as though this word
has two stresses, but the "a" is the main stress, and the
"u" is the secondary stress. So once again, that's
"pronunciation".
Chihiro It's usually the longer words that have a secondary
stress. The secondary stress is softer, but you can hear it
better than the other sounds. Now, onto the bigger
picture. In a sentence, nouns, verbs, and adjectives are
known to be content words in a sentence, which means
that they have a meaning on their own. We usually hear
the stress in these words in a sentence, which sets the
rhythm of a sentence.
Ryan For example, in the sentence
Chihiro "I saw a friend last weekend."
Ryan "saw," "friend," and "weekend" are the content words,
at least the way Chihiro said it. Thus, hearing the
2 sentence as a whole, those are the words that have the
most audible stress. The other words, "I," "a," and "last"
are not as important; therefore, we do not stress them as
much when we are speaking.
Chihiro This does not mean that we don't say them, but we just
don't emphasize them as much. Of course, depending on
what you want to convey, the stress of the sentence may
change. If Ryan says,
Ryan "I saw a friend last weekend."
Chihiro You can tell that he's trying to make it clear that it was
"last" weekend and not any other weekend.
Ryan So in this sense, the content words can change
according to what I want to convey.
Chihiro You might think, how do people understand the
unstressed words if you can barely hear them? If you
think of the unstressed sounds as the minor characters in
a play, and the stressed as the leading roles, then you

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can see how they both need each other. The story
wouldn't make sense without the minor characters, yet
most of your attention is on the main character.
Ryan Stress is an important aspect to know and understand
when learning English. It will also set the stage for the
next lesson.
Chihiro If your native tongue is not a stress language, then it
may be hard to pronounce words as well as hear and
understand them at first.
Ryan But once you recognize the difference, you will know
what to look out for and what to practice.
Chihiro You can take out a book and read the sentences out
loud for practice. Which do you think are the content
words? When you practice reading out loud, you might
want to exaggerate the content words.
Chihiro Also, remember that you can find fun lessons that will
fit into your daily lives at the click of your mouse. Visit
us at EnglishClass101.com and sign up for your free life
time account today! See you all soon!
Ryan Bye for now!

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