This weekend is a long weekend here in Ontario. I am excited to have three days off! If you are from Korea or China, almost Happy New Year!
Today, I'm am going to talk about word stresses. I will be doing a video on vowels and stresses soon, but I thought it would be a good idea to show you a strange thing about stresses.
Every English word has a stress. A stress is a longer (not louder) vowel. For example, when we say 'Canada', the first 'a' is pronounced longer and more clearly. Try it out.
Usually, English words only have one stress. This is a very strong rule. However, sometimes there is a stress and also half a stress. What?! That's right.
This happens when we add a prefix to a root. For example, 'lock' and 'unlock'. 'Lock' is the root and 'un' is the prefix.
The stress in 'lock' is on the 'o'. However, when say 'unlock' we put a half stress on the 'u' and a full stress on the 'o'. Look at the picture below to help. We do the same thing with any word that has a prefix and a root.
(The big square and the high peak mean a full stress and the small square and the short peak mean a half stress.)
I hope this will help you improve the accuracy of your pronunciation. Good luck! If you would like some help with your pronunciation, you can email me at englishispersonal@gmail.com or you can comment on this blog. Check out one of my videos for a little sample of my lessons. Of course, we will customize your lesson to your needs.
I hope you have a great weekend!
If pronouncing vowels clearly makes you crazy, we can fix that!
Matthew
englishispersonal@gmail.com
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