Word stress (Easy)
Vocabulary points to take away:
Word stress is when you pronounce a particular syllable of a word more strongly than the
other syllables in the word. It is important to get the stress right. Speaking with the wrong
word stress can make your English sound unnatural.
For example, when you say the word ‘photograph’, which has three syllables, you say it with
the stress on the first syllable. You say photograph, not photograph or photograph.
In the dictionary, word stress is shown like this:
photograph – /ˈfəʊtəɡrɑːf/
The ˈ before the /f/ sound shows us that the stress is on the first syllable: photograph.
We can also show the stress pattern of a particular word by drawing a diagram like this:
And with these diagrams we can show how word stress patterns change in words that
come from the same root word:
Stress on the third syllable from the end | Stress on the penultimate syllable (4- syllable words) | Stress on the penultimate syllable (3- syllable words) |
biography geography photography | alphabetic biographic geographic photographic | artistic dramatic |
CLOZE TEST
created with the online Cloze Test Creator © 2009 Lucy Georges