Focusing on the "stress-timed" quality of the English language greatly helps you improve your pronunciation skills. Many second languange speakers of English often focus on pronouncing each word correctly and therefore tend to pronounce in an unnatural manner. By focusing on the stress-timed factor in English - the fact that only principle words such as proper nouns, principle verbs, adjectives and adverbs receive the "stress" - you'll soon begin sounding much more "authentic" as the cadence of the language begins to ring true. The following lesson focuses on raising awareness of this issue and includes practice exercises.
"The boys didn't have time to finish their homework before the lesson began."
:||: English is considered a stressed language while many other languages are considered syllabic.
:||: In other languages, such as French or Italian, each syllable receives equal importance (there is stress, but each syllable has its own length).
:||: English pronunciation focuses on specific stressed words while quickly gliding over the other, non-stressed, words.
:||: Stressed words are considered content words and non-stressed words are considered functions words. Take a look at the following list of stressed and non-stressed word types.
Basically, stress words are considered CONTENT WORDS such as:
> Nouns e.g. kitchen, Peter
> (most) principle verbs e.g. visit, construct
> Adjectives e.g. beautiful, interesting
> Adverbs e.g. often, carefully
Non-stressed words are considered FUNCTION WORDS such as:
> Determiners e.g. the, a, some, a few
> Auxiliary verbs e.g. don't, am, can, were
> Prepositions e.g. before, next to, opposite
> Conjunctions e.g. but, while, as
> Pronouns e.g. they, she, us
Read the sentence aloud:
"The beautiful mountain appeared transfixed in the distance."
Read the sentence aloud:
"He can come on Sundays as long as he doesn't have to do any homework in the evening."
:||: Notice that the first sentence actually takes about the same time to speak well! Even though the second sentence is approximately 30% longer than the first, the sentences take the same time to speak. This is because there are 5 stressed words in each sentence.
:||: Be surprised at how quickly your pronunciation can improves. By focusing on stressed words, non-stressed words and syllables take on their more muted nature.
:||: When listening to native speakers, focus on how those speakers stress certain words and begin to copy this.
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Teacher Mar