Learn English Pronunciation: Syllable Stress

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Syllable Stress

It is important to study syllable stress. Often incorrect stress causes the listener to misunderstand. In American English, syllable stress rules are not exact. Here are a few very general thoughts:

many nouns have stress on the first syllable
when the form of the word changes, the stress often changes
there are some patterns related to prefixes and suffixes

For syllable stress, the best rules to follow are these:

learn it word-by-word
review other forms of new words in a dictionary
be clear about the vowel sound on the stress
remember that unstressed vowels may get reduced to "u" as in "up."

Practice Syllable Stress

Get started practicing with the word lists below. These lists and video lessons will show you how to speak the stressed vowel and reduce other vowels. You can see how stress often changes with word forms. For instance, if you just learned the word technology, you could save yourself time by also studying technological.

If speaking with stress is difficult for you, start with these lists and repeat after the instructor in the video. Do this every day until speaking with stress becomes more natural.

Syllable Stress 500 Words	Syllable Stress Business Words	Syllable Stress in Set Phrases	Syllable Stress with Suffixes
Syllable Stress Prefixes Intro	Syllable Stress Prefix List	Syllable Stress Prefix List 2	750 Business Words Class

Learn More Pronunciation

Introduction to Word Stress

Grammar and Idioms

Vowel Sounds Pronunciation

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