How should my English sound? - Lesson 5

Saturday, September 13th – Introducing word stress.

In words with two or more syllables we give stress to one of the syllables. We do it in the following ways: Making it longer, making louder or making it higher.

We can show stress using circles. Each circle is a syllable and the bigger circle shows where the stress is. For example 'Saturday' is Ooo (SATurday).

Let's analyse the following conversation:
A: When do you 'begin' (oO) your 'holidays'? (Ooo)
B: On the 'thirtieth' (Ooo) of 'August'. (Oo)
A: That's next 'Saturday'. (Ooo)
B: We're leaving in the 'afternoon'. (ooO)
A: And when are you coming back?
B: Saturday 'September' (oOo) the 'thirteenth' (oO)
A: 'Thirtieth'? (Ooo)
B: No, 'thirteenth' (oO).

Different words have different stress patterns (Oo, oO, Ooo, oOo and ooO). Let's see these examples:
Oo – April, thirty, morning, Sunday.
oO – July, thirteen, Brazil, today
Ooo – Saturday, thirtieth, yesterday
oOo – Remember, tomorrow, twenty
ooO – afternoon, seventeen, tycoon

Stress patterns can help you to notice differences in similar words as those ones ended in 'teen' and 'ty'. For example – thirty (Oo), thirteen (oO); sixty (Oo), sixteen (oO).

Exercise 1: Put the words in the right group according to their stress pattern.

Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, today, tomorrow, April, July, August, September, October, November, holiday, 2nd, 11th, 13, 30, 13th, 30th, 17, 70,afternoon.

Oo -
oO -
Ooo -
oOo -
ooO -

Exercise 2: Choose a word from Exercise one to complete the following sentences:
1. I'm going to have a party on _________.(Ooo)
2. My grandfather is _______ (Ooo) years old.
3. In Europe the weather is warm in _______ (oO)
4. Goodnight. See you ________ (oOo)
5. I often sleep one hour in the __________(ooO)

Bibliography: HANKOK, Mark. English Pronunciation in Use. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.

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