Syllables and Stress

Syllables and stress patterns in EnglishEnglish Syllables and Stress Patterns

Syllables and stress are two of the main areas of spoken language. Pronouncing words with the stress on the correct syllables will help you improve your spoken English, make your sentences easier to understand and help you sound more like a native speaker.

English syllables are stress-based. English is classed as a ‘stress-timed’ language, which means the meanings of words can be altered significantly by a change in word stress and sentence stress. Some syllables in English are long and some syllables are short. This is why it is important to learn how to use word stress in English and develop an understanding of sentence stress and English stress patterns.

 

Syllables

The English language is heavily stressed with each word divided into syllables. Here are some examples of English words with different numbers of syllables. These sets of words are followed by a series of examples using the correct stress placement:

Words with one syllable 

The, cold, quite, bed, add, start, hope, clean, trade, green, chair, cat, sign, pea, wish, drive, plant, square, give, wait, law, off, hear, trough, eat, rough, trout, shine, watch, for, out, catch, flight, rain, speech, crab, lion, knot, fixed, slope, reach, trade, light, moon, wash, trend, balm, walk, sew, joke, tribe, brooch

Words with two syllables

Party, special, today, quiet, orange, partner, table, demand, power, retrieve, doctor, engine, diet, transcribe, contain, cabbage, mountain, humour, defend, spatial, special, greedy, exchange, manage, carpet, although, trophy, insist, tremble, balloon, healthy, shower, verbal, business, mortgage, fashion, hover, butcher, magic, broken

Words with three syllables

Fantastic, energy, expensive, wonderful, laughable, badminton, idiot, celery, beautiful, aggression, computer, journalist, horrify, gravity, temptation, dieting, trampoline, industry, financial, distinguished, however, tremendous, justify, inflation, creation, injustice, energise, glittering, tangible, mentalise, laughable, dialect, crustacean, origin

Words Scrabble tiles - Syllables and Stress in English

Words are made up of syllables – image source

Words with four syllables

Understanding, indecisive, conversation, realistic, moisturising, American, psychology, gregarious, independence, affordable, memorandum, controversial, superior, gymnasium, entrepreneur, traditional, transformation, remembering, establishment, vegetation, affectionate, acupuncture, invertebrate

Words with five syllables

Organisation, uncontrollable, inspirational, misunderstanding, conversational, opinionated, biological, subordination, determination, sensationalist, refrigerator, haberdashery, hospitality, conservatory, procrastination, disobedience, electrifying, consideration, apologetic, particularly, compartmentalise, hypochondria

Words with six syllables

Responsibility, idiosyncratic, discriminatory, invisibility, capitalisation, extraterrestrial, reliability, autobiography, unimaginable, characteristically, superiority, antibacterial, disciplinarian, environmentalist, materialism, biodiversity, criminalisation, imaginatively, disobediently

Words with seven syllables

Industrialisation, multiculturalism, interdisciplinary, radioactivity, unidentifiable, environmentalism, individuality, vegetarianism, unsatisfactorily, electrocardiogram

English Stress Patterns

When thinking about syllables and stress in English, usually we find that one syllable of a word is stressed more than the others. There are always one or more stressed syllables within a word and this special stress placement helps words and sentences develop their own rhythm.

Syllables and stress patterns in English help to create the sounds, pronunciations and rhythms that we hear all around us.

Word Stress in English

We come to recognise these English syllables and stress patterns in conversations in real life interactions and on the radio and television. Using the correct stressed syllables within a word is an important part of speech and understanding.

Pronouncing words with the right word stress will make your language sound more natural to native speakers. Here are some words from the previous lists with the stressed syllable in bold:

Two syllable words stress patterns:

Quiet, party, special, today, orange, partner, table, demand, power, retrieve, engine,  diet, greedy, exchange, manage, carpet, although, relax, comfort

Three syllable words stress patterns:

Fantastic, energy, expensive, aggresion, wonderful, laughable, badminton, celery, temptation, trampoline,  industry, dintinguished, financial, however, tremendous, library

 

Four syllable words stress patterns:

Understanding, indecisive, conversation, realistic, moisturising, American, psychology, independence, entrepreneur, transformation, fascinating, comfortable

Five syllable words stress patterns:

Uncontrollable, inspirational, misunderstanding, conversational, opinionated, biological, alphabetical, subordination, refrigerator, haberdashery, hospitality

Six syllable words stress patterns:

Responsibility, idiosyncratic, invisibility, capitalisation, discriminatory or discriminatory, antibacterial, superiority, autobiography, materialism, biodiversity, criminalisation, imaginatively,

Seven syllable words stress patterns:

Industrialisation, multiculturalism, interdisciplinary, radioactivity, unidentifiable, environmentalism, individuality, vegetarianism, unsatisfactorily, electrocardiogram

Syllables and Stress Patterns in English Speech

Using clear syllables and stress patterns is an important part of speech. The correct word stress in English is crucial for understanding a word quickly and accurately.

Even if you cannot hear a word well and are not familiar with the context, you can often still work out what the word is, simply from listening to which syllable is stressed.

In the same way, if a learner pronounces a word differently from the accepted norm, it can be hard for a native speaker to understand the word. The word or sentence might be grammatically correct, but if they have used the wrong (or an unexpected) stress pattern or the wrong stressed syllables, it could make it unintelligible to a native.

Learning a language is all about communication and being able to make yourself understood. This is why syllables and stress patterns in spoken English are so important.

 

English Word Stress Rules

Here are some general rules about word stress in English:

  • Only vowel sounds are stressed (a,e,i,o,u).
  • A general rule is that for two syllable words, nouns and adjectives have the stress on the first syllable, but verbs have the stress on the second syllable.

For example: table (noun), special (adjective), demand (verb).

  • Words ending in ‘ic’, ‘tion’ or ‘sion’ always place their stress on the penultimate (second to last) syllable. (e.g. supersonic, Atlantic, dedication, attention, transformation, comprehension).
  • Words ending in ‘cy’, ‘ty’, ‘gy’ and ‘al’ always place their stress on the third from last syllable. (e.g. accountancy, sincerity, chronology, inspirational, hypothetical).
  • Words ending in ‘sm’ with 3 or fewer syllables have their stress on the first syllable (e.g. prism, schism, autism, botulism, sarcasm) unless they are extensions of a stem word. This is often the case with words ending ‘ism’.
  • Words ending in ‘ism’ tend to follow the stress rule for the stem word with the ‘ism’ tagged onto the end (e.g. cannibal = cannibalism, expression = expressionism, feminist = feminism, opportunist = opportunism).
  • Words ending in ‘sm’ with 4 or more syllables tend to have their stress on the second syllable (e.g. enthusiasm, metabolism).

definition of 'ism' suffix in English

Words ending in ‘ous’

  • Words ending in ‘ous’ with 2 syllables have their stress on the first syllable (e.g. monstrous, pious, anxious, pompous, zealous, conscious, famous, gracious, gorgeous, jealous, joyous).
  • English words ending in ‘ous’ with 4 syllables usually have their stress on the second syllable (e.g. gregarious, anonymous, superfluous, androgynous, carnivorous, tempestuous, luxurious, hilarious, continuous, conspicuous). There are some exceptions using different stressed syllables, such as sacrilegious, which stresses the 3rd syllable.

Words ending in ‘ous’ with 3 or more syllables do not always follow a set stress pattern. Here are some common English words with 3 syllables ending in ‘ous’ and their stress placement:

Words ending in ‘ous’ with stress on first syllable

fabulous, frivolous, glamorous, calculus, dubious, envious, scandalous, serious, tenuous, chivalrous, dangerous, furious

Words ending in ‘ous’ with stress on second syllable

enormous, audacious, facetious, disastrous, ficticious, horrendous, contagious, ambitious, courageous

 

Stress can changing the meaning of a word

Remember, where we place the stress in English can change the meaning of a word. This can lead to some funny misunderstandings – and some frustrating conversations!

Words that have the same spelling but a different pronunciation and meaning are called heteronyms. Here are a few examples of words where the stressed syllable changes the meaning of the word:

  • Object

The word ‘object’ is an example of an English word that can change meaning depending on which syllable is stressed. When the word is pronounced ‘object’ (with a stress on the first syllable) the word is a noun meaning an ‘item’, ‘purpose’ or ‘person/thing that is the focus’ of a sentence.

For example:

    • She handed the lady a rectangular object made of metal
    • He was the object of the dog’s affection
    • The ring was an object of high value
    • The object of the interview was to find the best candidate for the job
    • The object was small and shiny – it could have been a diamond ring!

But if the same word is pronounced ‘object‘ (with the stress on the second syllable) the word is now a verb, meaning ‘to disagree with’ something or someone.

For example:

    • They object to his constant lateness
    • The man objected to the size of his neighbour’s new conservatory
    • She strongly objects to being called a liar
    • We object to the buildings being demolished
    • No one objected to the proposal for more traffic lights
  • Present

When the word ‘present’ is pronounced ‘present’ (with the stress on the first syllable) the word is a noun meaning ‘a gift’ or an adjective meaning ‘here / not absent’.

For example:

    • She handed him a beautifully wrapped present
    • The book was a present from their grandparents
    • Everyone was present at the meeting

But when the word is pronounced ‘present’ (with the stress on the second syllable) the word is now a verb meaning ‘to introduce’ something or someone, ‘to show’ or ‘to bring to one’s attention’. It can also be used when talking about presenting a TV or radio show (i.e. to be a ‘presenter’).

For example:

    • May I present Charlotte Smith, our new store manager
    • Bruce Forsyth used to present ‘Strictly Come Dancing’
    • I’d like to present my research on the breeding habits of frogs
    • They presented the glittering trophy to the winner
    • She was presented with the Oscar
    • This new situation presents a problem
word stress - present

To present or a present? Image source

  • Project

Another example of an English word changing meaning depending on where you place the stress is the word ‘project’. This can be the noun when the stressed syllable is at the start – ‘project’ (a task).

For example:

    • They started work on the research project immediately
    • She looked forward to her next project – repainting the house
    • He enjoyed writing restaurant reviews – it was his current passion project

However, this word becomes a verb when the stressed syllables moves to the end – ‘to project‘ (to throw/launch, to protrude, to cause an image to appear on a surface, or to come across/make an impression).

For example:

    • The object was projected into the air at high velocity
    • The film will be projected onto the screen
    • The chimney projects 3 metres from the roof
    • She always projects herself with confidence

Stress patterns in compound words 

Compound words are single words made up of two distinct parts. They are sometimes hyphenated. Here are examples of stress patterns in compound words in English:

  • Compound nouns have the stress on the first part: e.g. sugarcane, beetroot, henhouse, tripwire, lighthouse, newspaper, porthole, roundabout, willpower
  • Compound adjectives and verbs have the stress on the second part:
    e.g. wholehearted, green-fingered, old-fashioned, to understand, to inform, to short-change, to overtake

English sentence stress 

Once you understand word stress in English, you need to think about sentence stress. This means deciding which words to stress as part of the sentence as a whole. Stressed syllables can create a distinctive, rhythmic pattern within a sentence. This is how English stress patterns are related to the rhythm of English and help create the ‘music’ of a language.

English speakers tend to put stress on the most important words in a sentence in order to draw the listener’s attention to them. The most important words are the words that are necessary for the meaning of the sentence. Sentence stress is just as important as word stress for clarity. For example:

‘The cat sat on the mat while eating its favourite food’

The most important words here are: ‘cat’, ‘mat’, ‘eating’ and ‘food’. Even if you only hear those words, you would still be able to understand what is happening in the sentence simply from hearing which words are stressed.

Clearly, it is the nouns and verbs that are the most important parts of the sentence, as these are the ‘content words’ that help with meaning. Content words are usually stressed.

 

The adjectives, adverbs and conjunctions all add flavour to the sentence, but they are not absolutely necessary to understand the meaning. These ‘helper’ words are usually unstressed.

In our example sentence: ‘The cat sat on the mat while eating its favourite food’, we have already used the word ‘cat’ so we do not need to emphasise the word ‘its’ (or ‘he/she’ if you want to give the cat a gender), because we already know who is eating the food (i.e. the cat).

English word stress within a sentence

Stress patterns affect words and sentences in English.

The stress on a word (the word stress) is the emphasis placed on that word. In the sentence below, “I never said he ate your chocolate”, the stressed word will change the meaning or implication of the sentence:

stressed words - changing meaning - I never said he ate your chocolate

Stressing the first word ‘I’ implies that I (the speaker) never said it. It might be true or it might not be true – the point is, I never said it – someone else did.

Stressing the second word ‘never’ emphasises that I never said it. There was never an occasion when I said it (whether it is true or not).

Stressing the third word ‘said’ means that I never said it. He might have eaten your chocolate, but I didn’t say it. I might have thought it, but I never said it out loud (I may only have implied it).

Stressing the fourth word ‘he’ means I didn’t say it was him that ate your chocolate, only that someone did.

Stressing the fifth word ‘ate’ means I didn’t say he had eaten it. Perhaps he took it and threw it away or did something else with it.

 

Stressing the sixth word ‘your’ means it wasn’t your chocolate he ate –  it could have been someone else’s chocolate.

Stressing the seventh word ‘chocolate’ emphases that it was not your chocolate he ate – he ate something else belonging to you.

So the sentence stress in English makes all the difference to the meaning of the whole sentence. The stressed word in the sentence is the one we should pay the most attention to.

Stress placement affects the whole understanding of the English language. This issue is strongly related to the rhythm of English. Getting the right word stress, sentence stress and rhythm leads to the perfect communication of your intended message.

bar of chocolate

So who ate your chocolate? – image source

Stressed Vowel Sounds and Weak Vowels in English

The necessary words in an English sentence are stressed more by increasing the length and clarity of the vowel sound.

In contrast, the unnecessary words are stressed less by using a shorter and less clear vowel sound. This is called a ‘weak’ vowel sound.

In fact, sometimes the vowel sound is almost inaudible. For example, the letter ‘a’ in English is often reduced to a muffled ‘uh’ sound. Grammarians call this a ‘shwa’ or /ə/.

You can hear this ‘weak’ vowel sound at the start of the words ‘about’ and ‘attack’ and at the end of the word ‘banana’. They can sound like ‘ubout’, ‘uttack’ and ‘bananuh’ when spoken by a native English speaker. The article ‘a’ as a single word is also unstressed and reduced in this way to a weak ‘uh’ sound.

 

For example: ‘Is there a shop nearby?’ sounds like ‘Is there-uh shop nearby?’ This shwa can also be heard in other instances, such as in the word ‘and’ when it is used in a sentence. For example: ‘This book is for me and you’ can sound sound like ‘This book is for me un(d) you’.

The reason for this weak stress pattern in English is to help the rhythm and speed of speech. Using this weak ‘uh’ sound for the vowel ‘a’ helps the speaker get ready for the next stressed syllable by keeping the mouth and lips in a neutral position.

To pronounce the ‘a’ more clearly would require a greater opening of the mouth, which would slow the speaker down.

Stressed vowels in English - giraffes

The giraffe on the right holds its mouth and lips in a neutral position, ready to speak again – image source

As English is a stress-timed language, the regular stresses are vital for the rhythm of the language, so the vowel sounds of unstressed words in English often get ‘lost’.

In contrast, syllable-timed languages (such as Spanish) tend to work in the opposite way, stressing the vowel sounds strongly, while the consonants get ‘lost’.

Click on the highlighted text to learn more about how English word stress and sentence stress relates to the rhythm of English and intonation in English.

 

What do you think about syllables and stress in English?

Do you find the syllables and stress patterns a difficult part of learning a new language?

Have you had any funny misunderstandings from stressing the wrong syllable in English? We’d love to hear your stories!

Are there any English words or sentences with odd stressed syllables or difficult stress patterns that you would like advice on?

Can you think of good way to remember or practise correct English word stress and sentence stress?

Do you have any ideas to help EFL students improve their understanding of syllables and stress?

Let us know your thoughts in the comments box.

 

123 thoughts on “Syllables and Stress”

  3. Hi Niki

    A good way to practise the syllables and patterns of the English language is to use nursery rhymes and children’s songs. These usually have simple vocabulary so the student can listen to the patterns rather than concentrate on the meaning. http://www.myenglishlanguage.com/2012/08/24/teach-efl-using-nursery-rhymes/

    Another useful tool for music fans is pop music from the 1950s and 1960s. Artists like Elvis Presley have simple, effective lyrics that are easy to understand, leaving the listener free to focus on the sounds of the words.

    Do any readers have other suggetsions for great listening practice?

    Best wishes,
    Catherine

  5. Hi Utile, I’m really glad you found the article helpful! You might also our articles on Phonology and Speaking/Listening skills 🙂

  7. Hi Asmaa,
    Stress determines which syllable is emphasised the most and the least during speech, rhythm concerns the gaps between syllables during speech and intonation is all about voice pitch (e.g. the voice rises at the end of a sentence to form a question). We will be publishing an article about this topic soon, so watch this space 🙂
    Best wishes,
    Catherine

  9. The ‘tion’ at the end of many English words is thought to have developed from Norman French influence (you can see our History of English section for more about the influence of the Norman Conquest). English words ending in ‘tion’ are usually pronounced with a ‘sh’ sound but when the letter ‘s’ precedes the ‘tion’, the word is normally pronounced with a ‘ch’ sound. For example, ‘intention’ and ‘position’ have a ‘sh’ sound, but ‘question’ and ‘suggestion’ have a ‘ch’ sound’.
    I hope this helps 🙂

  10. How would you break procrastination? since I blv the type of English you speak would influence the pronunciation.Which syllable would then be stressed?

  11. Hi Sherin, the word ‘procrastination’ follows the 5 syllable pattern for a word ending in ‘tion’, so the stress comes on the 4th or penultimate syllable – procrastiNAtion (just like the word ‘pronunciAtion’).

  16. Hi. which syllable carries the stress in this words? Pronunciation, homogenous, determination, education. Thanks

  17. Hi Olakunle, thanks for your question. These words are pronounced as follows with the stress falling on the letters in bold:

    Pronunciation, homogenous, determination, education

    Homogenous (4 syllables) is pronounced with the stress on the second syllable. There is another very similar word, homogeneous (5 syllables) which is pronounced with the stress on the third syllable. The difference is all in the extra ‘e’.

    The words ending in ‘ation’ always have a stress on the penultimate syllable (‘a’)

    I hope this helps!

  18. I cant close this page without saying a big thank you.
    infanct you make me understand this concept to the best of my knowledge.

  20. Thank you so so much. Pls I still need clarity on words ending n with ‘sm” and “ous” Thank you

  21. Thanks for your comment, Amy. We have added a section about words ending in ‘sm’ and ‘ous’ in the English Stress Rules section. I hope this helps.

  22. wow! this is great and really helpful. can there be stress on other parts of speech in a sentence other than nouns and verbs? if yes, examples pls

  23. Hi Noah,

    I’m glad you found the page useful! Normally a sentence stresses the nouns and verbs because these are the most important ‘content’ words. Other words can also be stressed, such as adjectives and adverbs. For example: ‘She bought a big, red car’ – here the adjectives ‘big’ and ‘red’ and the noun ‘car’ would all normally be stressed. In the sentence: ‘They walked quickly to the office’ the adverb ‘quickly’ would also be stressed alongside the verb ‘walked’ and the noun ‘office’.

    Structural words, such as conjunctions and prepositions, are rarely stressed. The exception to this is when emphasising a point or correcting information. For example: ‘He cooked chicken and beef for dinner’ – here the most important aspect of the sentence is not that he cooked dinner (that information is expected or already known by the listener), but that he cooked both meats. Stressing the conjunction ‘and’ helps us understand this meaning.

    I hope that helps!

  25. Hi Ijeoma, the ‘ing’ ending adds another syllable to the word but the ‘ing’ ending is always unstressed. For example: ‘drive’ (1 syllable) becomes ‘driving’ (2 syllables) and ‘moisturise’ (3 syllables) becomes ‘moisturising’ (4 syllables).

  26. i really love this. pls what is the stress of the word that end wit MENT example goverment

  28. Thanks for your comment, Marcell. I’m really pleased the article helped you! It means a lot to know that learners are benefiting from the content. You might also find our pages on intonation and rhythm of English useful. Good luck with your language learning!

  29. Hi Abu!

    In the word ‘government’ the stress is on the first syllable: government. This is because ‘ment’ is used here as a suffix and does not change the stress of the original word (govern – government). ‘Ment’ is often used as a suffix like this to change a verb into a noun, but the new word will always follow its original stress rule – the ‘ment’ is never stressed.

    Other examples of this: ‘announce‘ – ‘announcement’, ‘disappoint‘ – ‘disappointment’, ‘commit‘ – ‘commitment’, ‘develop’ – ‘development’.

    For words ending in ‘ment’ where the ‘ment’ part is not a suffix, the stress can be more difficult to place. Here are some examples:
    cement, figment, augment, sediment, parliament, impediment, compliment.

    If the word is longer than 2 syllables and the ‘ment’ is not a suffix, the stress will not be on ‘ment’. In words with 2 syllables the stress can be on either the first or last syllable and sometimes this can change the meaning of the word (e.g. ‘torment’ (noun) and ‘to torment‘ (verb).

    Can any readers think of any word with more than 2 syllables ending in ‘ment’, where the ‘ment’ is not a suffix and the stress is on the ‘ment’? This is an interesting challenge!

    Hope this explanation helps, Abu 🙂

  30. I Really Appreciate These..But According To The Rule,two Syllable Words that is”verb and adjective” Will Have Their stress on the second sylable then why is it GOVern and nt govERN

  31. Hi Ayomide, thanks for your comment! The word ‘govern’ is a verb (‘to govern’) but not an adjective. The related adjective would be ‘governed’. For words with two syllables that are adjectives and verbs the stress will usually be on the second syllable, but this is only a general rule and you will find exceptions.

    Some examples of exceptions are: ‘open’ – ‘to open’ (verb) and ‘an open book’ (adjective); ‘better’ – ‘to better’ (verb, ‘to better something’ means to improve on it) and ‘a better book’ (adjective); ‘baby’ – ‘to baby (someone)’ (verb, meaning to pamper/mollycoddle) and ‘a baby sparrow’ (adjective)
    All these words are also nouns – could this be why they are pronounced on their first syllable? Can anyone think of other two-syllable words that are stressed on the first syllable and are both adjectives and verbs – but are not also nouns?

  33. Hi Karima, to divide a word into syllables we break down the word into units of speech. Each syllable contains a vowel sound and the start/end of vowel sounds act as the breaks between syllables. The syllables help in creating the rhythm of the language. It’s worth noting that prefixes and suffixes will always add a syllable (e.g. rewriting = re-writ-ing).

  34. Hi my name is Elizabeth I am confused with the stress placements for these names increase in salary,increase in premium,they contract the dreaded disease at sea,my record was kept in the school,the principal advised the students at assembly

  35. Hi me again can you explain to me about the bound morphemes because i dont understand why they say these words are not examples of bound morphemes .
    caption,amuse,image

  36. Hi Elizabeth,
    Thanks for your question. The word ‘increase’ changes its stress placement depending on whether you are using it as as a verb (to increase) or a noun (the/an increase). The verb stresses the second syllable and the noun stresses the first syllable, so this would determine how your first two sentence fragments are stressed. (Incidentally, the stress for the other words here would be salary and premium)
    The words ‘contract’ and ‘record’ work in the same way (verbs – ‘to contract‘ and ‘to record‘, nouns – ‘a contract’, ‘a record’)
    In this context, ‘contract’ is a verb, so the stress placement would be: ‘they contract the dreaded disease at sea‘.
    In the other sentence, ‘record’ is used as a noun, so the stress placement would be: ‘my record was kept at school‘
    The last sentence would have this stress pattern: ‘the principal advised the students at assembly’.
    I hope this helps! If you send the full sentences for the first two fragments containing the word ‘increase’ we can determine if they are used as nouns or verbs and therefore the exact stress placement.

  37. Hi again Elizabeth 🙂
    A bound morpheme is a word element that cannot stand alone as a word. This includes prefixes and suffixes. Examples of bound morphemes are: ‘re’, ‘pre’, ‘ing’, the pluralising ‘s’, the possessive ‘s’,’er’, est’ and ‘ous’. They can be added to another word to create a new word. For example: prearrange, rewrite, copying, pencils, Elizabeth`s, stronger, strongest, dangerous. The words in your question (caption, amuse and image) are not bound morphemes because they can stand alone as words in their own right. I hope this explanation helps!

  38. Thanks so much I have learnt a lot.
    But how can words such as guarantee, decompose, afternoon, fortunate, inundate, computer, alternate, efficient, galvanize, convocation, habitable, momentary be stressed.

  39. Hi Arinze,
    I’m glad the page has helped you learn more about syllables and stress 🙂 The words in your list are stressed as follows:
    guarantee, decompose, afternoon, fortunate (from the noun ‘fortune’), inundate, computer, alternate (verb), alternate (adjective), efficient, galvanize, convocation, habitable, momentary (from the noun ‘moment’).

  40. How can we stress the words that end with ‘ay’ as in always, ‘lt’ as in result, malt, belt, ‘ce’ as in reproduce, peace, lice, pierce, ‘and’ as in understand, ‘it’ as in permit, vomit …. Hope to hear from you Sir/Ma
    Thanks

  41. Hi Adebola,
    Here are the words you requested with the stressed syllable highlighted:
    always, result, malt, belt, reproduce, peace, lice, pierce, understand, permit (noun), to permit (verb), vomit. The words with only one syllable (belt, malt, peace, lice, pierce) are irrelevant to the issue of word stress because stress only becomes apparent when there is a contrast with another unstressed syllable within the same word. I hope this helps!

  43. Hi Sara,
    Are you worried about any words or phrases in particular? If the listener knows you aren’t a native speaker, they will make allowances for any mispronunciations and 99.99% of native speakers won’t be offended if you say something cheeky by mistake, so please don’t worry 🙂

  49. Hi Cynthia,
    Thanks for your question. Words ending in OR usually denote a property of something or someone. For OR words with 2 syllables (e.g. debtor, sailor, author, actor, tractor, terror, error, mirror, major, tenor, donor, sensor), these nearly always have the stress on the first syllable. One exception is abhor. It is worth noting that in British English we often have a ‘u’ between the ‘o’ and ‘r’ but American English doesn’t usually have the ‘u’ (e.g. honour, tremor, pallour, labour, ardour, glamour, colour).

    Words ending in OR that have a root word are stressed the same as the root word. Adding OR to the root is often a way of giving a noun agency. For example: projector, detector, generator, conductor, accelerator, administrator, radiator and governor all come from the root verbs: to project, to detect, to generate, to conduct, to accelerate, to administrate, to radiate and to govern.

    If there is no root word, the stress will often be on the third from last syllable. So if there are 3 syllables in total, it will be on the first syllable e.g. metaphor, monitor, senior). Another example is ‘ambassador’ with 4 syllables.

  52. Thank you so much ..for your very helpful article.
    Please give us some simple tips on how to perfect the English stress pattern. Almost all the general rules have so many exceptions.

  53. Hi Ralphael, glad you found the page helpful. English is full of exceptions unfortunately, but some simple tips include:

    • Stress the most important words in the sentence.
    • Modulate your voice to add emotion to important words – don’t keep it flat and monotone.
    • Keep stressed syllables slightly longer, higher in pitch and louder than unstressed syllables.
    • Identify how many syllables a word has so you can break it up – and remember the stress will fall on a vowel sound.
    • Speak clearly and slowly – even without perfect stress patterns, slow and clear voices are much easier to understand.
    • Focus on the general rules – you will learn about the exceptions with practice.
    • Read and listen to a text at the same time – an audio book with transcript is perfect (also try TV with subtitles) so you can hear how a sentence is pronounced and get used to the sounds and rhythm of English.

    I hope this helps!

  54. God bless you rabbi ..I really wish I am in your college. I have so many questions, some not pertaining to this topic.

  56. What is the name of the stress symbol called as in café with the symbol over the (e)? And is it on any keyboard to type? I just noticed it on my sentence above and it was there automatically, how do I get each time I type café?

  57. Hi David, the accent slanting forwards in the word café is called an acute accent (the accent slanting backwards is a grave accent). The right Alt key (sometimes marked Alt Gr) can create this accent when pressed with the e key. The apostrophe key ‘ + e also works in the same way. You can also create the letter e with an acute accent using the shortcut keys Alt + 0233. Let me know if these worked for you!

  59. I’m sorry you didn’t find the information you needed Felix. Did you have a specific question about syllables and stress you wanted help with?

  60. i have been waiting such an opportunity, thank god it has come; madam, i have been finding it tough to understand stress on my own, though, i got some rules that helps me while dealing with stress like: if a word end with the following; ic, sion, tion, nium, cious, nics, cience, stress mark falls on the second syllable from the end if counting backward eg eduCAtion. stress mark falls on the third syllable from the end if counting backward, these words end with the following; ate, ty, cy, gy. eg, calCUlate. but with all this, i still find it tough to stress most of the polysyllabic words, pls can you help me? words like; educative, agreement,philanthropist, understandable, and several others, i can’t stress them with dictionary aid, pls help me!

  61. Thanks for your message Lorkyaa. The pronunciations for the words you mention are: educative (from the verb ‘to educate’), agreement (from ‘to agree‘), philanthropist and understandable (from ‘to understand‘). The word ‘calculate’ is pronounced calculate with the stress on the first syllable, which is indeed the third from the end!

  64. Academic has a stress on the second syllable and academic has a stress on the second to last symbol. Academic follows the ic rule. How do I explain that the middle syllable of academy is stressed?

  65. Hi Jenna,
    We can explain the difference in stress pattern between the adjective ‘academic’ (stress on the penultimate syllable) and its related noun ‘academy’ (stress on 2nd syllable) because these words have different roles in a sentence. Adjectives ending in ‘ic’ will stress the penultimate syllable, but it doesn’t follow that their related nouns will follow this stress pattern. Can any other teachers offer insight into this adjective/noun relationship when it comes to word stress?

  68. Such an useful article….concepts are explained so clearly and in a easily understandable way…thanks a lot!!
    could you throw some light on the stress pattern for the words like chairperson,probably,sentence,insurance,disintegrate,impossible ?

  69. Glad you found it useful, Vani! The stress pattern for these words is as follows: chairperson, probably, sentence, insurance, disintegrate and impossible.

  71. Hi Vivian, the word ‘investigation’ has 5 syllables and the stress is placed on the 4th syllable: investigation. The root word here is ‘investigate’ which has stress on the 2nd syllable. The ending ‘ion’ in ‘investigation’ moves the stress to the penultimate syllable.

  72. Good job Catherine, I guess the syllable in accommodation falls on ‘DA’, where does it falls in accommodate? Thanks.

  73. Hi Remi, yes the stress falls on ‘da’ in ‘accommodation’ but it falls on the second syllable (‘co’) in ‘accommodate’

  77. Hi Michael, these words are stressed as follows (stressed syllables in bold): departmental, synonym, university, structure, culture

  79. Thanks Catherine, glad i found this article.
    In this article i learnt that words ending with “ment” like government can be stress on its base word i.e GOvern , but what about Bewilderment?

  80. Hello Tope, glad you found the article useful! Bewilderment also follows this pattern – it is stressed on the second syllable (‘wil’) because the base word is bewilder.

  81. Good contribution, Admin!

    Where is the stressed syllable in the word “TRIBALISM”?
    If asked to underline the stressed syllable, where exactly would the underlining begin and end?

  84. Can you please tell me the real relationship between syllable structure and stress
    I am missing something out

  85. Hi Thimozana,
    Stressed syllables are normally longer, louder, clearer and slightly higher in pitch than unstressed syllables. The relationship between syllables and stress will usually follow the patterns explored in this page – for example, nouns with 2 syllables normally have their stress on the first syllable. The English language always has exceptions though, so unfortunately there is no one definitive rule that will work every time.

  86. Hey Catherine, Thank you so much for such a nice explanation. You dedication is superb the way you have been answering the queries of the readers on this platform since 2012.
    I could read this page continuously for 1 hour without even a single moment of boredom.
    Hats off to your dedication !!!

    Regards
    Mahender.

  87. Thank you for your kind words, Mahender! I love teaching and helping people understand more about English – hopefully my answers and explanations are useful! It’s great to hear you enjoyed the article so much. Good luck in your language journey!

  93. I wonder why the word “communicative” stresses on the second syllable.Are there any special rules?

  94. Hi Jocelyn, the word ‘communicative’ comes from the root word ‘communicate’ and keeps the same stress. Both are stressed on the second syllable. Most words that are a variation of another word will continue to be stressed in the same way as their root word.

  96. Thank you very much for this. I really find it helpful.

    Please admin do we have five syllable words that have their stress on the fifth syllable? And please can you mention some of the words?

  98. Thank you for this Great Article…it’s very helpful.

    Pls Words ending with “ite”, “phy”, “able”, “ment” can be dressed where?

  100. This is so so helpful! However, I noticed that when words become longer the stress shifts or maybe I am wrong here, look at these examples, forbid – forbidden (do you stress for or bid, transformation – transformational (ma is where the stress fall) right?
    How about /al-ter-na-ting/?

  101. Hi LG, glad you found the page useful! The longer words will usually have the same stress as their root word, though there are exceptions. In your example, ‘forbid‘ and ‘forbidden’ both have their stress on the second syllable ‘bid’. ‘Transformation’ and ‘transformational’ both have their stress on the third syllable ‘ma’. Words ending in ‘ation’ will stress the ‘a’, instead of their root (e.g. here the root ‘transform‘ stresses ‘form’). Your third example, ‘alternating’ stresses the first syllable ‘al’, the same as its verb root ‘to alternate’. There is also an adjective version ‘alternate’ which stresses the ‘ter’.

  104. Thanks for inspiration this articles are very helpful I appreciate

  105. There are three boundary markers: {{angbr IPA|.}} for a syllable break, {{angbr IPA||}} for a minor prosodic break and {{angbr IPA|‖}} for a major prosodic break. The tags ‘minor’ and ‘major’ are intentionally ambiguous. Depending on need, ‘minor’ may vary from a [[foot (prosody)|foot]] break to a break in list-intonation to a continuing–prosodic-unit boundary (equivalent to a comma), and while ‘major’ is often any intonation break, it may be restricted to a final–prosodic-unit boundary (equivalent to a period). The ‘major’ symbol may also be doubled, {{angbr IPA|‖}}, for a stronger break.{{#tag:ref|Russian sources commonly use {{unichar|2E3E|WIGGLY VERTICAL LINE}} (approx. ⌇) for less than a minor break, such as list intonation (e.g. the very slight break between digits in a telephone number).Ž.V. Ganiev (2012) ”Sovremennyj ruskij jazyk.” Flinta/Nauka. A dotted line {{unichar|2E3D|VERTICAL SIX DOTS}} is sometimes seen instead.|group=”note”}}

  106. Hi please be so kind to assist me with the following words i need stress pattern for them
    for example Character-Ooo
    Remove?
    Celebrities’?
    Currency?
    Killing?
    Silly?
    Waste?
    Product?
    Action?
    Figures?
    Fight?
    Please I need to be sure hence I am asking please assist

  107. Hi Sasha, the words in your list are stressed as follows (stress in bold):
    Character, Remove, Celebrities, Currency, Killing, Silly, Waste, Product, Action, Figures, Fight
    Note the words ‘waste’ and ‘fight’ only have one syllable.

  110. I think other site proprietors should take this website as an model, very clean and wonderful user genial style and design, let alone the content. You’re an expert in this topic!

  111. Can you give me a list of 2-syllable words that are nouns when stressed on the first syllable and verbs when stressed on the second? example: PROGress and proGRESS.

  112. To my own simple knowledge of syllable and stress, I think when counting where stress is placed in any word we count from right to left not from left to right. For instance :
    international =should be stressed in NA that’s interNAtional , Now,when counting we will say international is stress in the 3rd syllable that is counting from right hand side to the left hand side. But in your analysis I discovered you counted from left hand side to right hand side which is ought not to be.

  113. Hi Joanne, here are a few more two-syllable words that follow this pattern: record, permit, content, contest, survey, produce, refuse, protest, conflict

  114. Hi Seun, that’s an interesting thought. I think we count from left to right when counting syllables because we read from left to right in English. It would seem counterintuitive to count from right to left for a native English speaker.

  115. My take on compound word stress is that I go by the rule:
    Stress falls on what you want to point out in context or what defines the compound word

    Therefore it is /OLD fashioned/ and /GREEN fingered/ to me as well as /MARIGOLD Avenue/ and /MARIGOLD Street/. This also brings more clarity.

    Similar pattern is the /VICE president/, /MASS graves/, /SELF defence/, /GAZA strip/: the first part distinguishes something from a category.
    So stress falls on part one, unless I want to point out the other part within a specific context (e.g. saying the Gaza Strip has the geographical shape of a strip of land or you want to go to Marigold Avenue, not Marigold Street).

    Any idea what rules may be behind doing it differently?

  116. Hi Steve, thanks for your insights. I think the idea of stressing the other way around is to stress the most important part (or the noun) over the extra description (or the adjective). So to take a couple of your examples, the fact that something is a grave or a form of defence is more important than the fact it is a ‘mass’ grave or ‘self’ defence. So the ‘category’ is the most important part because the other part couldn’t exist on its own to describe the subject. It’s such an interesting topic though and people will always disagree on the ‘right’ pronunciation of some words!

  118. Thank you so much. it really helped me, but how do I stress words with tive, able, ry.

  119. This page helped me with a lot of things. I am so glad I found this page, it is clear and detailed.
    Thank you ma

  120. Hi help me stress this words
    1 Beginning
    2 Generous
    3 Necessary
    4 Reasonable
    5 Individual
    6 Execution
    7 Instigation
    8 Television

  121. Hi Don, here are the stress patterns for these words:
    1 Beginning
    2 Generous
    3 Necessary
    4 Reasonable
    5 Individual
    6 Execution
    7 Instigation
    8 Television

  123. Thank you so much this article was really helpful. Please can you add more stress rules like for words ending with ‘able’ and others. Thank you.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *