Pronunciation is at its blandest if you take away this thing called ‘syllable stress’. Syllable Stress provides rhythm to words in the same way Intonation provides rhythm to sentences. Therefore, you might want to stress (increase your pitch) on the correct syllable in a word, without which your pronunciation is never alright.
For Example:
A word like ‘magnificent’ has four syllables or parts: mag-nif-i-cent. Of these four parts, one part (syllable) is stressed to create a sense of rhythm, and in this word it would be the second syllable: ‘nif’. On this part we increase our pitch to produce what we call ‘stress’ on that syllable.
A few more examples:
1) Commercial is co-mmer-cial, and the stress is on the second part.
2) Syllable is syll-a-ble, and the stress is on the first part.
3) Thermometer is ther-mom-e-ter, and the stress is on the second part.
One thing which irks learners of the English language is the non-permanence of the syllable that needs to be stressed. So if the stress on a given word is on the first syllable, for another word it is one the second, and for another on the third. So then the question asked by many students is how they can ever know for sure which syllable in a word has to be stressed. Well the answer is to check the “stress pattern” of each word in a dictionary, in case we are not sure; however it would surprise a lot of people to know that they naturally stress on the correct syllables of many a words if they have been fluently speaking in the English language for a few years.
Alternatively a few syllable stress rules can be learnt to minimize mistakes.
The syllable before the ending has to be stressed in words ending in ‘ic’, ‘ical’, ‘ity’, ‘ial’ etc.
In bi-syllabic words, if the word happens to be a Noun we stress on the first syllable, and if the word happens to be a verb, we stress on the second syllable.
In words ending with ‘phy’, ‘try’,’cy’ etc., the third from the last syllable is stressed.
Join us for a free session to know more.
shikshaconsulting.com 