Stress And Intonation
Spoken Description
Learn to improve English pronunciation with exercises on stress placement, intonation patterns, and pitch changes. Enhance your speaking clarity and listening skills through practical tips and real-life examples.
Apprenez à améliorer la prononciation anglaise avec des exercices sur l'accentuation, les intonations, et les variations de hauteur. Améliorez la clarté de votre parole et votre compréhension orale avec des conseils pratiques et des exemples concrets.
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English relies on stress and intonation to make meaning clear and to signal attitudes, so tuning in to these patterns improves both understanding and naturalness.
Stress
Stress means emphasis on a syllable, and it can change a word’s part of speech or meaning, so paying attention to stress helps you use words correctly.
Word Stress
Each word has a syllable that is more prominent; dictionaries show this with a mark, and learners benefit from practicing words aloud to feel the stress.
Sentence Stress
In a sentence, important words like nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs get stress, while small function words are usually quieter; this pattern guides listeners to the key information.
Intonation
Intonation is the rise and fall of the voice across phrases and sentences, and it signals questions, statements, emotions, and whether more is coming, so it shapes the listener’s expectations.
Rising Intonation
A rising pitch at the end often marks yes/no questions, lists, or uncertainty, prompting the listener to respond or wait for more.
Falling Intonation
A falling pitch signals completion, such as in statements, wh-questions, and commands, and gives a sense of certainty and finality.
Examples
Summary
Stress highlights important syllables within words and key words within sentences, while intonation tunes the melody of speech to signal meaning and attitude; practicing both will make your English clearer and more expressive.
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