Syllable Stress (Continued):

This podcast teaches you how to pronounce words which may have two different stress patterns.

I strongly recommend that you listen to podcast #14, before using this one, if you haven’t already.

In today’s podcast, we’re going to learn about a group of words which have two different pronunciations in terms of syllable stress.
What’s interesting about these words is that when they’re used as nouns, they’re stressed on the first syllable.
When used as verbs, the stress changes and they are stressed on the second syllable.

Example: record (noun)
record (verb)

When is your band going to record a record?

Review: If a two syllable verb begins with a Latin prefix, don’t stress the prefix, stress the root. (see podcast#14)

Exercise: Listen and repeat the following words. The first word will be the noun (stress on the first syllable). The second word will be the verb (stress on the second syllable).

Noun                            Verb

conduct                       conduct
protest                         protest
p rogress                    progress
permit                          permit
increase                      increase
desert                          desert
object                           object
insult                            insult
present                        present
rebel                             rebel
project                          project
record                           record
suspect                        suspect

Exercise: Listen and repeat the following sentences. Each sentence contains a word in its verb and noun form :
Also notice how the vowel in unstressed syllables is reduced (see podcast#13) Pay careful attention to syllable stress.

The class presented the teacher with a present.

The rebels are planning to rebel next month.

We project that the project will cost millions.

The police suspect that the suspect knew the victim.

When will your band record a new record?

She objected to being treated like an object.

The newspapers’ descriptions of the conflict, conflict.

Feel the Rhythm
These are general rules of syllable stress that you can refer to. If you’re more comfortable learning syllable stress through memorization- feeling the rhythm of the word, that’s good too!. That’s the way native speakers learn stress.

Practice today’s exercises a few times, repetitively, so that they begin to sink into your memory. The key to learning an American accent is training, repetition, practice !

Through repetitive practice, you’ll begin to change the way that you speak English. You’ll begin to pick up the American accent!

Looking for more practice? Try  Best Accent Training mp3s!

Any questions, comments or suggestions ? Contact us at:  contact@englishpronunciationpod.com

Thank you and see you next time!

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