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The Pronunciation Lounge

Medium level

How to use word stress

Episode 250911 / 11 Sep 2025

Free worksheet and transcript

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What is word stress and how do we use it?

In words with more than one syllable, there’s usually at least one syllable that sounds clearer or more obvious. Maybe it’s stronger, louder or higher. For example, the word 'banana' has three syllables, but only the second syllable is stressed.

  • banana

Sometimes word stress can change the meaning of the word completely. For example, record. If you stress the first syllable (record), it means the noun - a disc we use to play music. If you stress the second syllable (record), it means the verb - one of its meanings is to capture video and sound using a camera. 

Top tip

In verb-noun pairs such as record and record, there is a pattern. The nouns in these pairs tend to have stress on the first syllable, whereas the verbs tend to have stress on the second syllable. Examples:

  • increase (verb) and increase (noun)
  • produce (verb) and produce (noun)
  • object (verb) and object (noun)
  • export (verb) and export (noun)
  • import (verb) and import (noun)
  • permit (verb) and permit (noun)
  • progress (verb) and progress (noun)
  • rebel (verb) and rebel (noun)

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To do

Practise by using the worksheet on this page. The clip we heard came from an episode of Real Easy English - discover the series.

Next

How to use sentence stress.

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