Word Stress
What is a word stress?
Word stress is the degree of prominence of a syllable in comparison with other syllables of a word.
What is a syllable?
A syllable is a unit of sound that contains a vowel, with or without surrounding consonants.
How many diphthongs are there in English?
There are 8 diphthongs.
Why connected speech is important?
It helps English learners understand native speakers more easily and sound more natural and fluent themselves
What are consonants in English?
Consonants are speech sounds produced when the airflow is blocked or partially blocked by the lips, teeth, or tongue.
What types of stress do we have?
Primary stress — the main, strongest stress in a word.
Secondary stress — a weaker stress, less prominent than the primary.
Weak stress — syllables that are almost unstressed.
Name three methods to find syllables.
Hand and chin method — feel the movement of your chin as you pronounce each syllable.
Clapping method — clap your hands for each syllable.
Robot method — say the word slowly, breaking it into syllables like a robot.
Give an example of a diphthong.
Example: /aɪ/ as in my or /eɪ/ as in name.
In the word "facts", native speakers don't pronounce the sound /t/. Which process of connected speech is this?
Elision
How many consonant sounds are there in English?
There are 24 consonant sounds in English.
A stressed syllable is…
longer
louder
has a change in pitch
pronounced more clearly
accompanied by longer facial movements
What types of syllables are there?
Open — ends with a vowel.
Closed — ends with a consonant.
Covered / Uncovered — describes whether a vowel is followed by a consonant cluster or not.
What diphthong do you hear in the word “snow”?
/əʊ/ — sounds like “оу”.
What sound is added in phrase "i agree"? Which process of connected speech is this?
/j/ sound звучит как "й", intrusion
How many fricative sounds are there in English, and what are they?
There are 9 fricative sounds: /f/, /v/, /θ/, /ð/, /s/, /z/, /ʃ/, /ʒ/, and /h/.
Mark the main stress in these words: banana, information, photograph, development
banana → baNAna
information → inforMAtion
photograph → PHOtograph
development → deVElopment
How many syllables do these words have? Photographer, comfortable, communication, opportunity
Photographer → pho-to-gra-pher → 4
Comfortable → com-fort-ble → 3
Communication → com-mu-ni-ca-tion → 5
Opportunity → op-por-tu-ni-ty → 5
What diphthong do you hear in the word “boy”?
/ɔɪ/ — sounds like “ой”.
In phrase "good girl" native speakers pronounce sound /d/ as /g/. Which process of connected speech is this?
Assimilation
What is the difference between voiced and voiceless consonants?
Voiced consonants are produced with vibration of the vocal cords (e.g., /b/, /d/, /g/), while voiceless consonants are produced without vibration (e.g., /p/, /t/, /k/).
Mark the main stress in these longer words: responsibility, examination, opportunity, investigation, advertisement
responsibility → responsiBIlity
examination → examiNAtion
opportunity → opporTUnity
investigation → investiGAtion
advertisement → adVERtisement
How many syllables in these longer words? Uncharacteristically, antidisestablishmentarianism, incomprehensibility
Uncharacteristically → un-char-ac-ter-is-tic-ally → 7
Antidisestablishmentarianism → an-ti-dis-es-tab-lish-men-ta-ri-an-ism → 11
Incomprehensibility → in-com-pre-hen-si-bi-li-ty → 7
How do monophthongs differ from diphthongs?
Monophthongs have one pure vowel sound, while diphthongs are a glide between two vowel sounds.
What is elision in connected speech?
Its disappearance of sounds in speech, generally considered to make pronouncing complex combinations easier, so when sounds are lost
What are the types of consonant sounds based on manner of articulation?
Consonant sounds can be plosives, fricatives, affricates, nasals, approximants.