Learning English

Free worksheet and transcript

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Why stress plays an important role in English pronunciation 

Languages are either syllable-timed, where all the syllables in a word last for the same amount of time, even when syllables are stressed, or stress-timed, where stressed syllables are pronounced at regular intervals, and all the other syllables in between are squashed to fit that rhythm, making them sound shorter. 

English is stress-timed. For example, in this sentence, 'English is a difficult language to learn', the syllables in bold are stressed: English is a difficult language to learn. Because the syllables in bold happen at regular intervals, the syllables in between those are rushed to fit the stress rhythm. 

How do we know which syllables to stress?

It's difficult to give an exact rule for this as stress can vary depending on emphasis, contrast, accent and more! It depends on the individual speaker.

However, we often stress the most important words in the sentence – they are the ones that carry the most meaning. These are usually nouns, main verbs, adjectives and adverbs. For example, in the following sentence, syllables in the nouns and verbs are stressed: 

• The neighbour has just knocked on the door.

Top tips 

• Listen to clips of fluent speakers. Preferably find the transcripts of what they're saying and mark which syllables are stressed. Ask yourself why they are stressed and then practise saying the sentences out loud, copying the stress and rhythm patterns. Try our podcasts.
• When syllables are unstressed, they become schwa sounds /ə/. Learn more about the schwa sound. 

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To do

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

Next

Learn about sentence stress. 

Learn about word stress.