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Syllables and Word Stress - English Pronunciation Lesson
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CEFR Level
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Hi, I’m Mikey.
Welcome to Oxford Online English!
In this lesson, you can learn about syllables and stress in English.
Do you know what stress means?
It’s one of the most important pronunciation points in English.
When you speak English, do other people find it difficult to understand what you’re saying?
If so, you might not be using stress correctly.
Pronouncing words with the correct stress can make a big difference to your English:
your English will immediately sound clearer and more natural.
You’ll learn all about stress in this lesson, but first, we need to talk about syllables.
Listen to four words:
fast person
beautiful information
Do you know how many syllables these words have?
Fast has one syllable: fast Person has two syllables: per-son.
Beautiful has three syllables: beau-ti-ful Information has four syllables: in-for-ma-tion
A syllable has one vowel sound (and only one vowel sound) and one or more consonant sounds.
Let’s do some more practice.
Look at four more words:
breakfast banana
tomorrow university
How many syllables do they have?
Breakfast has two syllables: break-fast.
Banana has three syllables: ba-na-na.
Tomorrow has three syllables: to-mor-row.
University has five syllables: u-ni-ver-si-ty.
So, this lesson isn’t really about syllables; it’s about stress.
What’s the connection between syllables and stress?
Think about the word banana.
Banana has three syllables.
Do you pronounce all the syllables the same: bah-nah-nah?
No, you don't—one syllable is stronger: ba-NA-na.
This is stress.
If a word has one syllable, you don't need to think about stress.
But, if a word has two syllables or more, one syllable is always stressed: it has a
strong, clear pronunciation.
Let’s practice pronouncing word stress correctly.
Let’s look at an example you just saw.
banana
Do you remember where the stress is?
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