EVERYTHING You Need to Master British English Intonation, Stress and Rhythm (📄 FREE PDF)

Today you're going to learn what is intonation,

what is the difference between stress and intonation, why is intonation important,

and then you're going to learn about the rules of intonation

and practice your English intonation with me.

Now, it's time to start learning about intonation.

Let's start with the first question.

What is intonation?

Intonation in English refers to the rise

and fall of your voice

while you're speaking.

You use intonation to convey emotion and meaning.

Intonation plays a crucial role in the expression of questions, statements, emotions,

and it can even change the meaning of words and sentences.

For example, look at this sentence.

You're leaving.

You can completely change the meaning of this sentence by changing the intonation.

With a rising intonation at the end,

it sounds like you're maybe a bit surprised

or you're just checking

if the person's actually leaving.

For example, oh, you're leaving.

With a falling intonation at the end, it sounds more like a statement.

For example, maybe you already know the person's leaving and you're just acknowledging it.

Oh, you're leaving.

As you can see, intonation completely changes the interpretation of a sentence,

making it super important for you to learn.

What is the difference between stress and intonation?

I've included this question

because a lot of people think

that stress and intonation are the same thing

and they're almost interchangeable terms,

but stress and intonation are not the same thing.

However, they are kind of like sisters.

What I mean by that is you'll often find them go together.

So, they're not the same thing, but usually they accompany each other.

Stress refers to the emphasis

that you place on a word

or in a part of a sentence.

For example, if I say really with a falling intonation at the end,

you can still hear that the stress is on the first syllable.

While if I say really,

now you can hear that the intonation goes up at the end,

but the stress is still on the first syllable.

Now, when you change the intonation,

notice that the meaning also changes. really with a falling intonation sounds more like

a statement while really sounds like I'm either asking a question

or I'm surprised.

Why is learning about intonation in words important?

Intonation helps to give meaning and emotion to what you're saying.

It's so important for clarifying meanings, expressing your feelings and emotions,

as well as managing the flow of a conversation.

Learning about intonation in English will not only help you to convey your emotions

and feelings and thoughts,

but it will also help you to understand other people's intentions behind what they're

saying.

In other words, you can study all the vocabulary and grammar in the world.

But if you don't understand how intonation works in English,

it can lead to communication problems.

Now, let's look at intonation in words and how to use intonation in words.

When it comes to words with just one syllable in English,

your intonation will either slide down or slide up when you're speaking.

For example, yes.

And yes, Freya has come to say hi.

Hi, baby.

She has a little infection in her eye,

so she's a little bit gunky today.

Hi, baby.

Say hi, little cutie.

Leave the tea.

Leave the tea alone.

Leave the tea alone.

Yes.

Sounds like you're asking a question or you're perhaps unsure about something.

It could also indicate that you're about to add extra and further information.

For example, have you finished writing your essay yet?

Yes.

Well, I just need to finish writing the conclusion,

but it should only take me about 10 minutes.

When you have a word in English with two or more syllables,

your intonation will jump.

For example, never and never.

Notice I'm not saying never.

It's not sliding.

It's never.

Never.

There's a jump between those two syllables.

Have you ever been to Madrid?

No.

Never.

Never.

Intonation in sentences.

When you stress words in sentences in English,

you'll notice that your intonation rises on those important stressed words.

For example, I need to study.

I need to study.

Notice that the words I

and to are very weak here

and your tone is very low.

However, notice that your intonation on the important words need and study goes up.

With need, because it's just one syllable,

your intonation starts high and then it slides down.

Need.

With study, your intonation goes high on

that first syllable because it's stressed

and then it lowers.

It jumps down when you say the second syllable

because this is weaker

and also it's the end of the sentence.

Study intonation in normal speech.

Typically in normal speech you will find a falling intonation at the end of

the sentence.

This indicates that you finished what you're saying.

For example, he arrived at noon.

You finished your sentence, so your intonation falls on noon.

When you finished your sentence, you typically end with a falling intonation,

which is why noon ends with a falling intonation.

However, if you want to show that you haven't finished speaking yet,

you can use a rising intonation.

For example, when I open the door, I got the fright of my life.

When I opened the door, I got the fright of my life.

So if I ended the sentence on when I open the door,

the other person would be sitting in suspense thinking

and and finish this sentence

because I ended with a rising intonation.

So to show to the other person, look, I finished speaking.

Now you can end with a falling intonation giving old and new information.

You can use intonation to indicate what is new

and old information for your listener.

When you think the information is new for your listener,

the intonation at the end of your sentence goes down.

If you think your listener already knows something or if something's quite obvious,

then your intonation will rise at the end of what you're saying.

You can also use rising intonation with information that's a bit redundant.

In other words, it may be something

that you've repeated from a person's question

or something repeated that someone said earlier.

For example, what time did Lisa leave?

I heard her leave at about 5:00.

I heard her leave is redundant information because the first person said,

"What time did Lisa leave?"

We're basically repeating a bit of the question.

It's redundant.

It's shared knowledge, shared information.

So, your intonation rises.

However, the new information is at 5:00.

This is new.

Therefore, the intonation goes down at the end.

Alternatively, you can flip this sentence around

and the intonation will still stay the same way

because it doesn't matter where these phrases are.

All it matters is what information is there.

So, you could say, for example,

at about 5:00 I heard her come in.

It sounds weird.

Sounds a bit like Yoda speech,

but it's possible because we don't really care where these phrases are in the

sentence.

All we care about is whether it's new

or old information. questions genuine

and checking for information.

If you believe that you must use a rising intonation at the end of

every question,

then you are wrong.

Questions in English are usually clear from their grammatical structure.

For example, I could say you have eaten

and we know that this is a statement.

However, have you eaten is more of a question.

We know that because of the grammatical structure.

This means that intonation in questions in English can be very flexible.

You can use different intonation in questions to show different meanings

or different types of questions.

If you want to ask a question and you don't know the answer,

so it's a genuine question, then your intonation usually falls at the end.

For example, when's your birthday?

I'm asking you with a falling intonation

because I genuinely don't know

when your birthday is.

However, if you want to check or clarify something,

so maybe you already know the answer

and you're not 100% sure

or you just want some clarification,

then your intonation usually rises at the end.

So, let's stick with the same question we had before.

Imagine I say, "When's your birthday?"

And I use a rising intonation at the end.

This sounds more like, "You've told me your birthday before,

but I don't remember when it is exactly.

I've forgotten."

You can also use a falling intonation at the end of questions

when you want someone to agree with something

that you've said.

For example, isn't it cold today?

I'm not genuinely asking if it's cold or not.

I'm making a bit of a statement,

but in the form of a question

because I want you to agree with me.

I'm trying to create a bit of a conversation with you.

You can also use rising intonation in questions when you want to express criticism.

For example, are you crazy?

Or you can use it for surprise.

How much of these?

Be careful when using intonation like this

because there is a huge difference between how much of these

and how much of these.

The first one sounds like you're asking a genuine question

because we're using a falling intonation like when's your birthday?

How much of these?

It's a real genuine question that you want to know the answer to.

So, your intonation falls.

The second one, how much of these sounds like you're really shocked or surprised,

like you can't believe the price of something.

So, it can come across as quite rude or offensive.

So, be really careful.

Sometimes when you ask a question,

you may have an idea what the answer is.

So you may want to add that after your question.

If you want to do this,

then you add a fall rising tone to

that little question with

that suggestion at the end.

For example, what time does the show start?

At 2:00.

At 2:00.

I'll give you another example.

Where have you been all day?

At work.

At work.

And you notice that the intonation goes really down

and then really back up again.

This is the full rising intonation.

Intonation in question tags.

A question tag or tag question, you can use either one,

is a short phrase

that we add to the end of a statement to turn it into a

question.

For example, you're coming to the party, aren't you?

You can use question tags for checking information, seeking agreements, giving opinions,

being a bit critical and sarcastic, and for even emphasizing things.

So, you can use it to emphasize something that was said earlier.

Let's talk about the intonation in tag questions when checking information.

The intonation in the first part will fall,

but the intonation in the second part, the little question tag, will go up.

For example, the film starts at 12, doesn't it?

Here, we think that the film starts at 12:00,

but we're not 100% sure, so we're just checking.

Now, if you want to say something

and you're not checking for information

and you believe that it's true,

you know that it's true,

then your intonation will fall and fall on the tag question as well.

For example, it's so hot today, isn't it?

Like, we know it's hot.

It's like 45° outside.

So, yeah, you can't deny it.

Yeah.

Right now, luckily, it's not 45°, but you are so annoying, aren't you?

She's not annoying.

She's lovely.

Now, let's look at seeking agreement and giving opinions.

If you're sharing a belief

or an opinion and you want your listener to agree with you,

then you can use falling falling intonation.

For instance, the film was great, wasn't it?

My intonation goes down on the question tag

because I'm not actually asking for clarification

or confirmation or anything.

I'm basically sharing my opinion and I want you to agree with my opinion.

Now, if you want to sound more sarcast

if you want to sound more sarcastic,

you can use a falling intonation.

We usually start these sarcastic phrases with oh so and sometimes well.

For example, so you think you're stronger than me, do you?

Oh, you think you're smarter than me, do you?

Here, I'm not asking an actual question.

I'm not being genuine.

I'm being a bit sarcastic.

Notice as well that I'm using a positive phrase with a positive question tag.

When you were first taught about question tags,

your teacher may have explained to you

that you must use a positive

and a negative together.

So your question tag should be negative in your statement before

that should be positive.

So it's always positive negative or negative positive.

However, look at what happens when you use positive positive.

It can give the impression of sarcasm or it can be used for surprise.

Here's another example.

Eating all that cake to yourself?

Are you notice how using positive positive actually sounds quite sarcastic

and quite critical like oh you're actually eating all

that cake to yourself are you?

Again I'm not asking a real genuine question.

I'm being a bit critical quite judgmental of the other person for eating the

whole cake which I never would cuz I am

that person that eats the whole cake.

Sticking with the theme of sounding a little bit mean

and adding some attitude to your intonation,

if you want someone to admit something

that they didn't previously want to admit

or something that they previously didn't believe,

then you can use a falling intonation.

For example, I told you not to touch that flame, didn't I?

So maybe the person before said, I'm going to touch the flame.

I'm going to touch the flame.

And you said, you know, if you touch that flame,

you're going to hurt yourself.

Then they touch the flame and you can turn around and say,

"I told you not to touch the flame, didn't I?"

Yeah.

Falling.

Falling.

Finally, if you want to emphasize something that you said before,

you can use a falling intonation to do this.

For example, that was a stupid thing to do, wasn't it?

Falling.

Falling.

So, you could just say, "It was a stupid thing to do."

But to really emphasize it,

you can add that question tag at the end

because it kind of makes the other person think like,

"Oh yeah, it was a stupid thing to do."

And if you want to do that, use a falling falling intonation.

It's a stupid thing to do, wasn't it?

Now, let's look at the intonation in questions

when you want to give your listener options.

When you want to give two possible options to your listener,

your intonation will go up on the first option

and then down on the second option.

For example, do you prefer tea or coffee?

Tea or coffee.

Here's another one.

Do you want to leave now or later?

Now or later.

So, if you have more options, like for example,

you may want to say tea, coffee, or juice.

It will just keep going up until you get to the final option.

And then the final option will have a falling intonation.

Do you prefer tea, juice, or coffee?

So it doesn't matter how many options you have.

You just keep listing them with a rising intonation

and then the final one will have a falling intonation to indicate

that it's the end of all the possible options.

And finally, intonation in lists.

This rule is quite similar to the one that we've just looked at.

So when you're giving a list in English and you're reading it aloud,

all of the things on the list will have a rising intonation to show

that the list is continuing.

But then the final item on that list will have a falling intonation.

And that falling intonation will indicate hm okay that's the end of the list.

For example, so I need to buy some eggs, milk, bread, and butter.

So, when reading a list,

if you keep using a rising intonation and you say something like, "So,

I need to buy some eggs, milk, bread, and you just stop,

then your listener will be like,

and and cuz they're waiting for you to complete

that list with a falling intonation."

And that's the end of your So, let's focus on the first one here.

So, we've got this text, right?

And as you can see there are parts

which are in capital letters

and this shows where our stress goes.

Okay, this is how the book represents stress.

So you've got you'll arrive for example.

Okay, you'll arrive.

The stress goes on arrive.

Then you've got these little arrows.

These arrows indicate where our intonation goes.

Does it rise or does it fall?

Okay.

Then you've got these little lines, these kind of dashes.

And these basically show uh the end of a speech unit.

So, you've got speech units, which I've not talked yet about on my channel,

but I will do in the future.

You've got these little speech units.

They're like sections of speech before you have a little pause.

So, every time you get these two little lines is basically a very short

pause.

So, I'm going to read through this.

Actually, you know what?

Let me just zoom in slightly.

Oh, you know what?

My editor could do it.

Editor Sneaky, can you like zoom in, please?

What what I'm going to do is read through it

and then you can listen.

And then what I'd like you to do is just listen and repeat.

After that, I'd also like you to think,

why do you think the intonation is changing?

What's the rule?

Can you notice something?

Okay, so let's read through it first.

You'll arrive at Central Station.

When you get off the train, turn left along the platform.

At the end of the platform,

there's an escalator. go up it and you'll be in the main square.

There's a fountain in the square and I'll be waiting for you there.

So, I'm going to read it once more,

but I'm going to pause after each speech unit

and I'd like you to listen

and repeat.

Okay, let's go.

You'll arrive at Central Station.

When you get off the train, turn left along the platform.

At the end of the platform, there's an escalator.

Watch out for that word, es not es or es, but escalator.

Go up it and you'll be in the main square.

There's a fountain or fountain.

Yeah, fountain in the square and I'll be waiting for you there.

So, if you're still you're still struggling with the tones, don't worry.

We're going to sort that out in a moment.

We're going to fix

that cuz I know my private students struggle with the tones quite a lot.

We're going to fix it.

Don't worry.

Firstly though, notice the rule.

Any idea what the rule is?

Well, if we scroll down a little bit,

if I scroll down a little bit here,

we can see that if we use a falling tone when we're speaking,

especially when we're giving information, I should say,

it tends to be when we're adding news.

So, our intonation goes down when we're saying something new.

If however our intonation goes up, it rises,

then it indicates that we're sharing something old, that it's not news,

that it's not new to the listener.

So if it falls, it's new information, and if it rises,

then it is old information.

So let's just have another little practice

because I know that especially

when I do these lessons with intonation with my private students,

they struggle a little bit with the tones.

So, what I want you to imagine is every time we get an arrow

that goes up,

imagine you're kind of asking a question.

So, it's like you'll arrive when you get off the train,

go up it in the square, okay?

And it goes up like this, like you're asking a question.

All the others where the intonation goes down,

you're just going to say it without falling intonation.

It's just going to fall.

So, at Central Station, turn left along the platform.

There's an escalator.

It goes down like this.

Okay, let's have a practice.

So again, I will say each speech unit.

I will pause for a moment.

If you need more time, pause the video, rewind,

do whatever you need to do to practice, but listen and repeat.

You'll arrive.

Imagine you're asking that question.

You'll arrive at Central Station. at Central Station.

When you get off the train when you get off the train,

turn left along the platform.

Turn left along the platform.

At the end of the platform.

At the end of the platform, there's an escalator.

There's an escalator.

Go up it.

Go up it.

And you'll be in the main square. and you'll be in the main square.

There's a fountain.

There's a fountain in the square in the square.

and I'll be waiting for you there.

And I'll be waiting for you there.

So, now we've gone through that, we understand the rules and everything.

Let's take a look at this part here.

So, this is taking the text

but just shortening it down to a a shorter example basically.

So, we've got it here.

See you on Saturday.

B says, but I'll be in London at the weekend. more naturally.

But I'll be in London at the weekend.

But I'll be in London at the weekend.

You see how it goes down on London

and then up again at the weekend.

So with London, we know that London is new information.

That's why our intonation is falling.

The weekend goes up because a already mentioned Saturday.

We know that we're talking about the weekend.

This is not new information for the listener.

So you can see here we've got exercise one.

This is actually a listening exercise.

We're not going to do this one together in this video.

We're actually going to jump down to this one here

and we're going to do this one together.

So what we're going to do is read through each of them.

We're going to do them together.

You can pause the video at any moment

if you want more time

or if you want to do them yourself

and then play more of the video

and check your answers later

and do it together with me.

But what we're going to do is read through each of these

and I'd like you to decide whether you think in each of the speech

units the intonation rises

or it falls.

So as you can see in the example in this book is great

because it always gives examples

when it gives the activities.

You've got the example what sorry where on earth did you find that?

Where on earth did you find that?

I came across it in an antique shop.

So in an antique shop gives us new information.

So the intonation is going to fall here.

I came across it is basically repeating I found it.

And the person asked where on earth did you find

that and they're saying I found it.

I came across it.

So the intonation goes up to show

that this is not new in new new intonation.

It's not new information.

I should say the new information is in the antique shop.

So take a look at the other ones.

What you can do is pause the video now,

have a go at doing these

and then you can check back

or we can do them together.

If you want to do them together, then let's go and do it now.

So the first one, what time shall we leave?

We could go now.

Was you ready?

We could go now.

Was you ready?

So we could go now is basically answering the question.

It's giving us that new information.

And remember, new information falls and old information rises.

Okay.

So, we could go now.

Was you ready?

We could go now.

Was you ready?

Number two.

What time did David get back?

Again, have a think.

What's important here?

What's new here?

What's new information?

New information always falls.

So, I heard him come in at about 3.

I heard him come in.

What time did he get back?

He got back.

You're basically repeating the question, aren't you, at that point?

I heard him come in at about 3.

I'm not sure his plan would work very well.

I thought his suggestion was ridiculous.

I thought his suggestion was ridiculous.

So, our intonation is going to fall on was ridiculous

because here we're answering the question

or we're not really answering a question here.

We're kind of giving some new information by saying I thought a suggestion.

We're not really saying anything.

We're just saying I I thought his suggestion thought his suggestion was what?

You know, we're not saying anything new, but was ridiculous.

We're giving some new information.

So, I thought his suggestion was ridiculous.

Number four.

The hall was packed, wasn't it?

Tag question there.

Careful.

The hall was packed, wasn't it?

Wasn't it?

I hate it when it's so crowded.

I hate it when it's so crowded.

So, I hate it is going to go down when it's so crowded.

Crowded, we've already mentioned that it was packed.

Okay, packed is the same as crowded.

It's busy.

There are loads and loads of people there.

So, the crowded part is redundant.

It's repeated.

Not new information.

I hate it.

Is new information.

Number five.

I wouldn't mind some orange juice if you've got any.

I wouldn't mind some orange juice if you've got any.

So, I wouldn't mind some orange juice is the part that's answering

if you've got any.

It's just a little plate thing in there.

It's not adding new or old information here really.

It's just redundant.

So, if it's redundant

and it's not important

and it's not adding any new information,

rise.

And then the last one, I could move that easily.

Well, why don't you try?

If you think you're so strong, well, why don't you try?

If you think you're so strong.

So, the same as what's happened with the other sentences.

If you think you're so strong,

here is not new information because the other person just said,

"I could move that easily."

So, they already think that they're quite strong.

So, here it's old information.

Therefore, it rises.

The new information here is why don't you try?

Yeah.

It's going to fall because it's new information.

And that's it for this lesson.

I hope you've enjoyed it.

And you So in general,

the way that people talk about intonation in questions is quite simple.

If you have a closed question and if you have an open question,

the intonation changes.

So let's start with a closed question first.

What does that mean?

A closed question is basically when you can answer with yes or no.

So if I say something like, are you from Spain?

Are you from Spain?

Then this you can answer with yes or no.

In general with these kind of questions, as you may have noticed,

then we rise that intonation at the end.

Are you from Spain?

Are you from Spain?

Another example is do you like chocolate?

Do you like chocolate?

Do you like chocolate?

You hear it goes up at the end.

Now, contrary to this, if you have an open question,

meaning that you can answer with anything besides yes and no.

So, it requires maybe a longer answer

or a different answer. essentially to yes

or no,

our intonation changes.

It actually goes down.

Now, this might be really weird for some people

because intonation in your language

when you're asking questions may always rise.

However, in English, it can rise

or fall like I'm going to show you now.

An example of this is where did he go?

Where did he go?

Where did he go?

You see, it drops on the go.

Where did he go?

I cannot answer with yes or no.

Where did he go?

Yes.

Doesn't work.

So this one, our intonation has to fall because it is an open question.

It's not closed.

Meaning I can only have a yes or no answer.

Another example is who's that?

Who's that?

Who's that?

It could be anyone.

I cannot say who's that.

No.

Okay.

It's not a closed question.

It is an open question.

It requires a different answer to yes and no.

Therefore, our intonation drops.

So to sum that part up, if your question is a closed question,

meaning you answered yes or no, that means your intonation rises.

If your answer is other is something other than yes or no,

and it is an open question, then your intonation is going to fall.

Now, the next thing I'm going to talk about is something

that quite a lot of books

and teachers and videos

and things miss out.

No shade towards them.

That's fine.

But we're going to talk about that now.

Let's take the sentence.

When's your birthday?

When's your birthday?

Now, I said earlier that because this is an open question,

I cannot answer with yes or no.

It means that the intonation is going to drop.

When's your birthday?

When's your birthday?

That's fine.

However, if I add a rising intonation and I say, "When's your birthday?

When's your birthday?"

The meaning completely changes.

So if I use a falling intonation here and I say when's your birthday,

it means that it is a genuine question.

I'm trying to find the answer to this question.

I do not know the answer.

However, if I use a rising intonation and I say when's your birthday?

When's your birthday?

It means that I forgotten.

I'm making sure I'm checking something.

So maybe you told me your name.

Sorry.

You told me when your birthday was in the past

and I just don't remember.

When's your birthday?

I don't remember when you told me it was.

Sorry.

You see the intonation goes up.

Another example is what's your name?

What's your name?

So, the intonation goes down.

What's your name?

Cuz it's a genuine question.

I'm trying to find out the answer.

I've never met you.

I don't know you.

What's your name?

Intonation drops.

However, imagine I've known you for, I don't know, a day,

but I've just forgotten your name.

So, my intonation would rise because I'm just checking.

What's your name?

What's your name?

What's your name?

So, with this rule,

we could say that our intonation drops with these kinds of questions

when we genuinely want to find out the answer.

We don't know.

And our intonation rises when we do know the answer,

but we're just checking

or we're clarifying or we're making sure

that the answer that we have is correct

or maybe we've forgotten

and we're just checking.

Now, another type of question

which confuses a lot of students is our choice questions.

So this is when you offer m or m.

Now what happens with this one is

that I rise my intonation on the first option

and then my intonation drops on the second option.

For example, do you prefer tea or coffee?

Do you prefer tea or coffee?

Tea or coffee.

You see on tea it rises.

Coffee it drops again.

Another example is do you prefer Spain or France?

Do you prefer Spain or France?

Rises on Spain, falls on France.

It also works the same

if I cut the rest of the question

and I just have the two options.

Tea or coffee?

Tea or coffee?

Works the same way.

So, that's pretty much everything you need to know for now about question intonation.

Before we start talking about the eight rules for word stress,

we're going to start with some absolute basics that you need to know.

And that is what is a syllable.

So a syllable is essentially the units of a word.

They're the sections of the word.

They're where we break the word up.

For example, the word go has just one syllable.

However, happy has two syllables.

Excited three syllables.

Reality four syllables. understandable five syllables.

Accessibility six syllables.

So you see we can add more

and more syllables the longer the word gets.

However, don't think that the more letters you add, the more syllables there are.

For example, we have uh one syllable.

At one syllable, but two letters.

Sit, one syllable, three letters.

Fool, one syllable, four letters.

Tooth, one syllable, five letters.

You see where I'm going with this?

Bought, six letters.

Brought, seven letters.

So don't think that the more letters a word has,

the more syllables it has.

Okay, it's not always the case.

So now we know what syllables are.

Let's start looking at our first rule.

Take a look at these words.

Table, ticket, pencil, record.

What do all these have in common?

They are two syllable nouns.

And where does the stress go?

On the first syllable.

So notice when we stress syllables, we're adding more emphasis.

We're pronouncing it more strongly.

So pencil, table, ticket, record.

So let's take for an example.

It's a perfect one here.

We have the same vowel sounds in both syllables, but I'm not saying tit.

It's not strong strong.

That first one is stronger.

Ticket.

Ticket.

Rule number two.

Take a look at these words.

Happy.

Angry.

Busy.

Easy.

What do all these have in common?

Again, they're not nouns.

They're adjectives.

Two syllable adjectives.

And just like our first rule, the stress goes on the first syllable.

So again, make sure you're pronouncing those stronger syllables with more emphasis.

Rule number three, take a look at these words

and think about what they have in common this time.

Record, provide, allow, become.

They are all verbs.

They are all two syllable verbs.

And where does the stress go?

on the second syllable.

So when you have two syllable nouns and adjectives,

the stress tends to go on the first syllable.

However, if it's a twocllable verb,

the stress tends to go on the second syllable.

So this means if you get words that are spelled exactly the same,

but they perhaps have a noun and a verb form, we change the stress,

we change the pronunciation.

For example, record.

Record.

This is the noun.

Record.

Record.

This is the verb.

Record.

Record.

You hear how the stress changes?

So, in some sentences, I bought a record.

I bought a record.

I'll record it later.

I'll record it later.

Here are just a few other examples,

but there are plenty of other pairs like this that go together.

Produce.

Produce.

Produce.

Produce.

Rebel.

Rebel.

Rebel.

Rebel.

Conflict.

Conflict.

Conflict.

Conflict.

So notice how that stress changes depending on the word form.

If it's a noun or if it's a verb.

Rule number four.

If we have a word ending in I see.

So I the stress goes on the penultimate syllable.

So if the word ends with,

the syllable before that will be the stressed syllable.

For example, static.

Static.

Barbaric.

Barbaric.

Enthusiastic.

Enthusiastic.

Rule number five.

Words ending in s i o n

or t i o n follow the same rule

that we've just talked about.

So the stress doesn't go on

that t i o n

or s i o n ending.

It goes before it.

So the syllable that's before it, we put the stress there.

For example, nation.

Nation.

Solution.

Solution.

So again, it doesn't matter how long the word is.

Obligation.

The stress still goes on that syllable before it, that penultimate syllable.

Obligation.

Station.

So, of course, if it's just two syllables,

it's going to go on

that first one because it's the syllable before the ti n station.

Rule number six, if we have words that end with,

and I need to look at my list, c y, t y,

p h y.

So, f g y or s y.

The stress goes on the antipenultimate syllable.

What does that mean?

So it doesn't go on the last.

It doesn't go on the one before that.

It goes on the one before that.

Okay.

So we're going to focus on the third one from the end.

For example, deocracy.

So notice that there's the stress syllable and then there's the two after.

Deocracy.

Hypocrisy.

Now, a nice long one here.

Cinematography.

So again, it doesn't matter how many syllables are before it,

it has one of those endings.

So it follows this rule.

Rule number seven.

If the word ends with, so a l,

it follows the same rule that we just talked about.

It goes on the anti-penultimate syllable.

So not on the not on the syllable before it,

but on the syllable before that.

For example, critical.

Critical.

Magical.

Magical.

Historical historical.

A longer one.

Economical.

Economical.

So again, doesn't matter what's before it,

the stress still goes on the anti-penultimate syllable.

Economical.

Finally, rule number eight.

This is probably the trickiest rule to get your head around.

It's why I've saved it for last for the most dedicated students who stuck

around to the end.

We're going to talk about sentence stress and how that affects a word's stress.

So, English is a stress timed language.

What does that mean?

What is a stress time language?

It essentially means that we have two types of words.

Our important words that we emphasize more

and then little words in between

that are there for grammatical purposes.

They're not that important and they are weakened.

So if you listen to English,

it sounds something like

and these W words

that are standing out tend to be clearer

and you understand them more easily.

Let's compare it to a syllable time language to make it a little bit

clearer what I'm talking about here.

So a syllable time language essentially put stress

and even timing on every single syllable.

So if you listen to a language, for example, like Spanish,

you will hear it being pronounced

as something like du du du du du du du du du du.

And I remember many years ago a tutor of mine at university telling me

that syllable time languages sound kind of like machine guns.

Like doo they're very even are all of the syllables.

Well, if you listen to a language like English, it's not like that.

If I were to pronounce it like that,

it would sound like this.

and everything would be stressed

and it would sound very very robotic.

So how do you know which words are stressed?

We can categorize words in English into two different groups.

Content words which are stressed.

They always carry the meaning, the important parts of the sentence, the content.

And then we have the structure words,

the little grammatical words

that are not so important

and they don't hold

that much meaning.

All of the content words would be stressed in a sentence.

The function or structure words, whatever you want to call them,

these in sentences tend to be weaker.

So your content words are nouns, adverbs, adjectives, verbs, question words like who, what,

when, etc. at the start of a question. negative auxiliary

and modal verbs as well

as negative words like no

and not etc.

Your function and structure words whatever you want to call them tend to be

your articles,

auxiliary verbs, modal verbs, the verb to be, pronouns, prepositions, and conjunctions,

otherwise known as connectives.

These words tend to have, if you look in the dictionary,

a strong and a weak form.

In sentences when we're speaking naturally, we tend to use the weak form.

I'll give you an example.

I wanted to see the film.

Notice that rhythm.

I wanted to see the film.

You see what I was talking about earlier?

B.

You see those words that are stressed,

the intonation goes up and they're a lot clearer.

While if we look at the words in between, those little function words,

you can see that they're very, very weak.

I don't say to see the film.

No, no.

To see the they become much weaker.

So these sorts of words,

they tend to be pronounced with schwa sounds like uh not always,

depends on the word,

but what you'll see is it goes from to to t the tothe.

They're a lot softer and a lot weaker.

Here's another example.

Can you help me with my homework?

Can you help me with my homework?

So notice that help and homework are both stressed.

Everything else is a lot weaker and a lot softer.

So we pronounce those those content words a lot stronger while the other words,

those structure words, they tend to get pronounced a little bit weaker.

If you want some more practice on this and some more information,

some more examples, I do have a video fully dedicated to this.

I will leave it down in the description.

Go and check it out.

It's one of my most popular videos,

so I'm sure you will enjoy it and benefit from it.

And that is the end of this lesson.

Let's start firstly with what kind of stress English uses.

English is a stress time language.

And this basically means that you give certain words,

which we'll talk about in a moment,

more stress and more emphasis when other words are weakened.

They sound a lot softer.

This is why when you're watching something with subtitles, for example,

you understand everything and then you turn off the subtitles and you think, "What?

What was that word?

That sounded like a really long word."

But actually, when you put the subtitles back on and you take a look,

it actually turns out to be these little words all squished together

and said very quickly.

And that's because of sentence stress.

We can compare a stress time language to, for example, a syllable time language.

A syllable time language basically gives each syllable approximately the same amount of time.

We can also compare it to more time languages.

For example, Japanese.

So if you're a Japanese speaker, congrats, you speak a more time language.

This is very similar in a sense to syllable time languages where you give

each moa the same amount of time.

I still remember when I was at university,

a lecture of mine described mora timing

and syllable time languages like machine guns. is like d

while English is more like

and that's because we give certain words more stress in a language like English.

So let me give you an example of what I mean.

Let's take this exercise here.

Very simple one.

Okay, I hope you can count to four

because that's all you need to do right now.

So we've got 1 2 3 4.

Okay, that's the rhythm we're going to follow.

1 2 3 4.

Let's try adding some words in between.

For example, one and two and three and four.

Now, notice what I did.

I didn't say one and two and three and four.

I didn't stress and.

I only stressed the numbers.

And and was weakened to.

So, not and but.

We're using a weak form here.

One and two and three and four.

Let's add another word in there.

One and a two and a three and a four.

One and a two and a three and a four.

Again, I'm not saying one and a two and a three and a four.

Okay, that's quite tiring

and my poor hand is going to start hurting in a moment,

but you see what I mean.

So in English, we don't stress every single word.

We're going to stress the numbers because they're important here in this exercise.

But the and ah are going to be weakened to n.

We're going to join them together.

An one and a two and a three and a four.

Now let's apply this same rule to a proper sentence.

So here I've got I want a cup of tea.

I want a cup of tea.

So notice I'm not saying I want a cup of tea.

It's not all stressed.

I want a cup of tea.

Now when it comes to intonation,

we're going to raise our pitch slightly on those stressed words.

So we're not going to read it all monotone like I want a cup

of tea.

Okay?

Sounds very robotic in English.

If you do that, you'll be understood, but to an another person's ear,

it will sound quite robotic.

So, raise your pitch on those stressed words.

I want a cup of tea.

I want a cup of tea.

Now, you're probably thinking, great, Emma, understood that.

But which words are stressed and which ones are unstressed?

I have a handy table for you.

What we can do is categorize English words into two different groups.

Our content words and function words. to name a few content words, nouns, adverbs,

adjectives, verbs, question words, and negative auxiliary, modal, and negative words in general.

For our function words, we have articles, auxiliary verbs, modal verbs,

the verb to be, pronouns, prepositions, and conjunctions, otherwise known as connectives.

So if we go back to our original sentence,

I want a cup of tea.

We have I pronoun want verb a article cup noun of preposition t noun.

So you can see here how it follows that list that I gave before.

Now let's change our sentence a little bit.

I would like a cup of tea.

This time we've got the pronoun.

Well, it's the same as before pronoun.

Then we've got would.

We've got a modal verb.

But notice I'm not saying I would like.

I weaken it.

I would like.

So would becomes would.

I would like.

Like is a verb.

I would like a it's the same after that actually is the first sentence.

So we have the article a cup noun of preposition and t the noun.

Let's take a look at this one together.

Which of these words do you think will be stressed?

Okay, you can pause.

Have a think.

She will be late to the party.

She will be late to the party.

So again, she pronoun will is our modal verb

and we don't usually stress modal verbs.

She will be late.

Late is an adjective to the not to the to the preposition article party

noun.

She will be late to the party.

She will be late to the party.

Here's another sentence a little bit longer to practice with.

Which ones do you think will be stressed here?

Feel free to pause the video and take your time.

Can you go to the shop and buy me some bread?

Can you go to the shop and buy me some bread?

Can, remember, is a modal verb.

We're not going to stress it.

Can becomes can.

Can can you go?

Can you go, not to the to the to the shop?

Can you go to the shop and buy me some bread?

Some strong form is some gets weakened to awah.

Can you go to the shop and buy me some bread?

Can you go to the shop and buy me some bread?

Now, we sometimes break this rule if the word is used for emphasis, contrast,

if it's alone in a sentence,

or sometimes if it comes at the end of a sentence.

So, let's take this sentence here.

Now, with normal sentence stress, we could say,

"I asked her if she wanted fish and chips."

I asked her or asked,

it's up to you.

or asked asked I asked her

if she wanted fish

and chips.

Fish and chips.

So, not fish and chips.

Fish and chips.

Okay.

And gets weak into.

But let's imagine the listener that we're speaking to got a bit confused.

They thought we said something else.

So, we need to clarify something.

No, I said fish and chips.

Not fish or chips.

Fish and chips, not fish or chips.

Now I'm giving stress to

and and or otherwise naturally it would be said

as fish and chips

and fisher chips.

Fisher chips.

That sounds really weird but it's what we would say.

Now for some extra practice

and to talk now there are different types of sentence stress depending on the

language.

Here I've got three different ones. syllable timed, stress timed, and mora timed.

I'm very interested to know whether you know this already.

What timed language is English?

Is English a syllable, a stress, or a morat timed language?

What do you think?

What do you think?

Oh, there are arguments breaking out in the chat.

Yeah, don't start arguments in the chat.

You Spanish sounds sexy.

Yeah, it's a country.

It's a country in South America.

Yeah, it's um very famous for its beef apparently.

Yeah, got more timing, stress timing, and syllable timing.

Which one do you think English is?

So, do you think English is a syllable timed language?

Is English a stress timed language?

or is English a more timed language?

We've got stress timed, mostly stress timed.

A few people said syllable.

One or two people said syllable.

People are asking what more timing is.

I will talk about that in a moment.

You only need to be concerned about more timing

if you are a Japanese speaker.

Don't worry.

If you're not a Japanese speaker, then forget it.

It's it's not important to you.

No doubt a lot of people here probably speak a syllable time language

as their first time

as as their first time

as their first language. heard about syllable

and stress,

but what's mora?

Don't worry, I'll talk about it.

English is stress, Spanish is syllable, and Japanese is mora.

Yes, Adsuko.

Very smart.

So, yes, as Adsuko said, syllable time languages are ones like Spanish, Italian,

and French.

Some stress time languages, English.

English is there, uh not Japanese, German, Russian, and European Portuguese.

Um, Brazilian Portuguese is a bit of a weird one because um,

a while ago when I was learning Portuguese,

I focused mostly on Brazilian Portuguese and um,

I was looking at the type of sentence stress it had

and it was supposedly like a mixture depending on the accent in um,

in Brazilian Portuguese, but um, it's mostly considered syllable timed apparently,

while European Portuguese is more stress timed

which is super interesting from a linguistic perspective.

I found that really interesting

and a more timed language is uh one like Japanese.

So for people asking what a mora timed language is,

what more timing is um it's essentially like uh it's kind of hard to

explain if you don't know Japanese speakers will be like ah yeah got it

I understand.

But um the way that Japanese words are formed are not in syllables.

They are formed in moa

which are to put it in the simplest way for you is essentially units

of sound like blocks of sound

or sounds.

So it could for example contain only a vowel sound

or it could contain a consonant

and a vowel and

that is considered a mora.

So, uh, an example I like to give is like how to say hello

in Japanese.

Yeah.

We say say like this.

Okay.

I don't have the the the right keyboard for it.

So, I'll write it in Romani.

But if anyone has a Japanese keyboard, please write uh in um in Cana,

please.

In hiragana.

So yes, we've gota if I were to say with syllables like English, Spanish,

Italian, etc. have it would be it would have four syllables, right?

However, when it comes to a more time language,

it would actually be Thank yous.

Yeah.

So it's more like units of speech.

Units of units of sound rather than speech.

Yeah.

Units of sound which usually are comprised of um a vowel

and a consonant and a vowel.

Um when it comes to Japanese, you also have the N sound.

Um I don't have the symbol, but it is this one here.

I'll just copy it from the chat.

This one.

So this is like the only consonant sound in Japanese where it is considered

as a single moa.

Yeah.

But in um in normal syllables like English, let's say.

So it's completely different.

If you don't speak Japanese, don't even worry about this.

Only worry about if you're a Japanese speaker.

All right?

Um otherwise you've got uh syllable time languages.

So many of you are probably syllable timed uh language speakers

and this essentially means

that you give each syllable the same amount of time

when you say it.

So I always describe this as kind of being like a machine gun.

So when you speak it's like da da da da da da da da.

Like every syllable has exactly the same amount of time.

Yeah.

Syllable timed.

Spanish, Italian, French, right?

like everything is da da d d d d d d d d d

d d d d d d d d d d d d d d

d d d d d d d d d d d d d d

d d d while a stress time language like English works differently in the

sense that you have uh your normal sentence okay

and then you have certain words

that are more prominent

and they're given more time

because you put stress on these words.

So if you have a sentence, this word's important, this one isn't,

this one isn't, this one is, okay?

Then the two words

which are not important are unstressed

and they are said weaker

and quicker and quite often they are squished together,

joined together and they almost sound like one word.

So let me know in the chat when you listen to particularly native speakers,

okay?

Um, let me know in the chat how tricky is it to understand them

or how easy is it for you to understand them.

If we put it on a scale,

if we say one as like I don't understand anything that native speakers say,

which no one should write a one

because if you are watching this

and you understand me

and you can answer the question,

then it can't be a one.

But if you say 10 like yes, I understand native speakers completely.

I understand them. no problems at all.

But let's say um you know,

let's put you at like a five or a six.

If you can understand certain strong prominent words, but those little words in between,

you really struggle with understanding, right?

I'll give you a a good situation

that many of you might have been in.

Um imagine you're watching something on uh something on Netflix, right?

Many of us probably have Netflix.

So, if you're watching something on Netflix, you think,

"I'm going to turn off the subtitles.

I'm going to turn off the subtitles

and listen and try

and improve my listening,

right?"

So, you turn off the subtitles, but then you realize, "Holy crap,

I don't understand anything.

They're talking way too fast, which they probably aren't.

They're probably talking normal speed."

Like, the way I'm talking now is normal speed.

It's not fast.

If I were talking like this, and it would be really fast.

Yeah.

But I'm actually talking a normal speed.

Yeah.

Um, and then you put the subtitles back on and then you're like, "Oh,

but hold on.

I understand everything they said with the subtitles.

I understand every single word."

So, the problem is not the grammar.

The problem isn't vocabulary.

So, what's the problem?

This This This is the problem.

This here, this is the problem.

And it's because you've got those certain important words

and then those little words in between are all squished.

Yeah.

And they become really hard to understand sometimes even for native speakers.

Um, tree Italian sounds like a robot.

Yeah, it can do.

Sometimes it sounds a bit mean to say it sounds robotic,

but um syllable time languages often do sound quite robotic

because it's like this duh du du du du du du like machine like

way of uh pronouncing the syllables

or producing the syllables.

Let's see.

No, we aren't learning Japanese now.

It's cuz people asked about more timing.

And if you're on another tab,

then that means you're not focusing on this stream.

So you need to focus and then you won't get confused.

People think English native speakers sound fast.

They use connected speech.

Exactly.

But we don't English actually.

You know what?

Maybe I can show you.

It' be a bit of a pain to set up.

But um there is a chart where you can see uh a number of

different languages and the speeds at

which the languages are.

So there are two ways of counting it.

Uh in these charts there is um the number of syllables per second um

and English falls very very low down.

Japanese and Spanish are right at the top.

The fastest is Japanese.

The second is uh Spanish

and then it goes down down down down down

and then English is right at the bottom.

I think English only just overtakes German but not by much.

And then you've also got um the amount of information that's conveyed per I

can't remember if it's per syllable

or per second but um English is quite high uh in in

that regard.

So, we speak slower,

but actually per second we can transmit more information than other languages.

It's so weird.

It's much more difficult to understand American native speakers.

Um, I agree and disagree at the same time.

I think it completely depends on the variance that you're used to.

So, for me, I understand American English absolutely fine

and it's absolutely nothing to do with me being native.

Um, it's simply just because I grew up with a lot of American TV,

American children's uh, cartoons, things like that.

But let's say, for example, you asked me to listen to, I don't know,

um, a very strong southern Irish accent.

I'm not as exposed to southern Irish accents, so sometimes um,

I find it a little bit trickier to follow.

Like for example, I'm from Yorkshire originally.

And for me, of course, it's my my accent.

I understand people from Yorkshire absolutely fine.

But when I was at university in Yorkshire,

there were people like other students um studying with me who really struggled with

the Yorkshire accent and they were native speakers from the south of England.

So, it's not necessarily because you're native or non-native,

it's simply because you're not exposed to that accent enough.

So, I always encourage people like learn different accents,

expose yourself as much as you can.

Um, if you can watch a movie without subtitles and you understand,

then your language is perfect.

I would say it's impressive.

Yeah, it's definitely impressive.

U, but then I try my favorite TV series.

Yeah, I understand Alberto.

I'm the same.

I'm the same.

Like with Spanish, I listen to my boyfriend.

I'm like, I understand every word.

And then I'll put on like casel and I'm like ah what?

They just don't articulate in that show.

It's frustrating.

Scottish accent sounds like a machine gun.

Interesting.

Interesting observation.

What accent do I have?

My accent is a bit of a mix.

I'm a bit of a bit of a mixed bag.

Um but my um

so I focus mostly on teaching modern receive pronunciation

but there are some parts of my accent

which are definitely uh more northern.

So for example I don't say path grass bath.

I say path grass bath.

Um but pretty much everything else I say is a modern RP

though sometimes my Yorkness slips through.

Yes.

Very good.

Okay.

So, people are quite confident with that.

Let me show you an example of what I mean with sentence stress with

some actual uh real life examples.

I'm going to move myself up here to give us some um some space

and um then you can see the text.

So, if we just focus on the first section here,

I'd like you to listen and repeat.

All right?

So, make sure you're in an environment where you can listen and repeat.

So we have drink water.

Drink water.

Now the second one.

Listen to what I do.

Drink some water.

Drink some water.

Drink some water.

And then the last one.

Drink some of the water.

Drink some of the water. drink some of the water.

So notice something.

I am not clapping on every single word in the second and third sentences.

Yeah, I clap on drink and water.

Why is that?

Because drink and water are important words.

Okay, I'm going to talk more about

which words are considered important

and not important in a moment,

but here drink and water are important, right?

Drink water.

So, we stress them.

Drink some water.

Now, if I spoke a syllable timed language like Spanish, okay,

let's imagine we are speaking English

but with uh with uh like a Spanish kind of syllable timed elements to

it.

Sentence two would sound like drink some water, drink some water, drink some water.

It's really strong, right?

But because it's English,

let me also just uh grab the comments here

and move that across a little bit.

There we are.

So here, instead of saying some, which can I make that a bit thicker?

Oh, nice.

Okay, so if it was strong like drink some water, drink some water,

then I would use the uh sound. it would be strong.

However, we are speaking English.

Yeah.

And English is, as we know, a stress timed language.

Okay.

So, we're going to weaken this to awah.

Drink some.

Not some some with a schwah.

Drink some water.

Drink some water.

Same here.

I don't say drink some of the water.

Yeah, drink some of the water.

Sounds very very robotic and it's quite hard to say.

It's quite like a workout on the mouth if you do it like that.

So notice what I do.

Drink some of the water, some of the some.

And remember last lesson we looked at connected speech in the previous workshop.

If you haven't seen it, it's linked in the description.

It is part two.

Okay, we're going to take this M.

We're going to move it over here to the start of the next word.

It's terrible arrow.

Try again.

So, it's summer.

Summer.

So, it sounds like the word summer.

Like, you know, spring, summer, autumn, winter.

Yeah.

Summer.

Here, we're going to remove this.

All right.

When it comes to some of the words that are not considered important,

we can cut some of the sounds in them.

Of its strong form would be of.

Okay, strong form.

Don't worry if you're not familiar with strong

and weak forms yet

because you will be by the end of today's workshop.

You will know exactly what uh strong

and weak forms are. of is the strong form.

Of is the weak form.

And now you're thinking, "Ah, but hold on, Emma, you said uh yes,

that's also another weak form.

Uh so this one here, uh sorry,

this one here with uh some other tends to come

when the next word starts with a consonant sound.

I'll put that like that.

Yeah.

It's usually when the next word starts with a consonant sound.

So, some of the.

So, the the sound here of course is a consonant sound.

The Yeah.

Some of the some of the we can cut it

because of is not considered important. some of the drink some of the water.

So you can see how um how sentence stress not word stress how sentence

stress works.

Now if you're thinking

which words do we stress

and which ones don't we stress.

I will show you now.

I'm going to put myself down here.

So we can divide words in English into two categories.

Our content words and our function words.

Our content words carry the meaning.

So going back up here, drink water.

Okay?

If I say to you, drink water, you know,

I want you to drink water, right?

No questions asked.

Nothing is ambiguous.

You know what I want.

But if I remove drink and water and I just say some of the,

you'll be like, some of the what?

Or let's imagine I remove some and I say drink of the water.

Yeah, it's it's weird.

It's not correct.

It's a very weird sentence.

But the key elements are there.

Drink water.

You know, I want that to happen.

The same if I remove the article or if I removed of.

If I say drink some of the um some the sorry,

drink some the water, you'll be like, hm, that's weird.

Sounds weird. not grammatically correct

but okay I will drink water right you understand

so these little words here are not important

so they're always stressed meaning um no matter where they are in a sentence

no matter what context they will always be stressed