What Is A Stressed Syllable

About this Video:
What is a stressed syllable? If you want to find out more about syllables in English, how to count syllables, how to divide syllables, this syllables lesson is for you.
Last week I was talking to you about rhythm and stress in english intonation and specifically how speaking in a stress timed rhythm would help you to sound much more confident and much more at ease speaking British English. So be sure to check out my channel and find out more about word stress in British English.
And as a part of the video I mentioned syllables and I said if you don’t know what a syllable was that you should go onto Google and check it out and it would give you the answer and I thought well maybe I should make you a video about syllables and so this is what I am doing and I'm gonna talk about syllables and the number of syllables in words but more importantly and more relevant how to stress those syllables in words in British English.
So here goes - what is a syllable?
A syllable is essentially a single unit of speech and that unit of speech tends to contain a vowel sound and that may have a consonant after it or before it, it may even have what is called a cluster of constance which means more than one constant before it or after it. That’s a pretty standard definition of syllable.
So for instance ‘at’ is a single syllable. It happens to be a word but it's a single syllable word; to’, ‘if’, ‘a’, so these are single syllable words in another name for those are mono-syllabic words and here are a few more:
at to bit can bite stack thwart click our or are
And a word that contains more than one syllable is sometimes referred to as a poly-syllabic word or some people say multi-syllable word. I prefer polysyllabic word. Here are a few of those:
a.head - contains two syllables
a.men.ded - contains three syllables
ra.di.at.or - contains four syllables
a.bbre.vi.a.ted - contains five syllables
au.tho.ri.ta.ri.an - contains six syllables
And in polysyllabic words it's important to know which syllable is stressed, because there are stressed and unstressed syllables. So, for example in the word ‘ahead’, ‘HEAD’ is the stressed syllable and the ‘a’ at the beginning is un-stressed - ‘a.HEAD’. In ‘amended’, ‘MEN’ is the stressed syllable the ‘a’ and the ‘ded’ at the end are unstressed - ‘a.MEN.ded’ and this is important because a lot of non-native speakers tend to either stress too many of the syllables in those words or they stress the wrong syllables. If you’re wondering ‘what is stress in english?’, the way in which we stress the syllable this is the important bit is that we change the pitch of our voice and to keep things simple for now the most common way that we do that is by increasing the pitch of our voice, not the loudness of our voice but changing the pitch to a slightly higher note so for instance: ‘a.HEAD’, ‘a.MEN.ded’. Can you hear that. So if you’re wondering ‘what is a stressed syllable?’ in British English, it’s the syllable that is emphasised by way of changing the pitch. It’s another way of talking about word Stress in english. Here are some more examples:
RA.di.a.tor
a.BBRE.vi.a.ted
au.tho.ri.TA.ri.an
a.MEN.ded
WON.der.ful
al.THOUGH
GE.ni.us
in.CRE.di.bly
frus.TRA.ting
al.THOUGH you are a GE.ni.us you are in.CRE.di.bly frus.TRA.ting
The last one is a good example of word stress in sentences.
And there are many words with 1 syllable, words with 2 syllables, words with 3 syllables, words with 4 syllables, words with 5 syllables, words with 6 syllables and many, many more…
So a syllable is a unit of speech that contains a vowel sound that may have a consonant or cluster of consonants before or after it and there are words that are monosyllabic single syllable words and words that are polysyllabic. And after you divide words into syllables, stressing the right syllable in those polysyllabic words by way of changing the pitch of your voice is the way that we would bring attention to and stress that part of the word in British English. This is part of stress patterns in English.
So I hope you found that useful and if you are on my website and scroll down now leave a comment it a thumbs up or thumbs down, I don’t really mind just give me some sort of reaction. If you're watching this on KZbin then after you've after you’ve hit the thumbs up or thumbs down or left me a comment go over to my website, there is a load of free stuff there, there’s a load of free downloads. There’s a couple of five day courses, free ffive day courses that you can download so head over there it’s englishpronunciationroadmap.com and I post weekly videos so be sure to subscribe to this channel and I'll speak to you soon.
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englishpronunc...

[@javinewjersey]

Great video. Stressed words are the most complicated part of speech for me but this video made it clear. Thanks.

[@chinskichrupek]

I’m so glad I have found your videos as I am struggling with my accent. This gives me some sort of complex. I am never confident when I speak in English and sometimes I’m afraid of people reaction. I am Eastern European girl so I believe the way I sound will be different to native English people but Im hoping to work on my accent and soften it up with help of your videos maybe ;) thumbs up 👍🏼

[@stefaniea7312]

Thank you for this video. English is my first language but this can a bit of a challenge to me at times

[@sarathakariamal2423]

same

[@EnglishEN]

1000 Basic English Words (01) 👉 سلسلة تعلم 10 كلمات يوميا نطقا و فهما مع أمثلة kzbin.info/www/bejne/jmOmlYeGd6aXosU

[@abbyloayza4591]

Thank you! My English Phonetics test is next week and I'm watching your videos for a better comprehension. Greeting from Argentina

[@saloksingh249]

Very nice explain

[@filat239]

Very useful video!

[@tabrezalam4756]

I am from India, your video proved to be very helpful for me

[@weiruliu4402]

It is really useful. Thanks for making this video.

[@musicbrazilian7065]

This is leadership style speach taken to the next level, thank you!

[@Nicole92486]

You are great! Very useful video that helps with understanding of the syllables! Can´t wait to visit your website :)

[@arunachalasundaram4587]

Beautiful pronounciation and excellent stress in your speech.

[@abdelbassetmhamdi6502]

❤🎉❤ you hit the nail on the head.

[@saidfarid6382]

Hi professor Thank you so much for your priceless advice and interesting guidance. I love your way of teaching and excellent explication. I really appreciate your job.

[@tszkinchan]

It helps a lot for my pronunciation.

[@remiborgen8925]

Your a fantastic teacher, thank you so much. I love you.

[@ricardobardales8137]

Brilliant! I was wondering what is the difference among rhythm , intonation, stress, pronunciation and accent? I would be grateful if you could explain it.

[@receivedSE]

Ashley, there are primary stress and secondary stress. Have you a video about this topic? Thank you.

[@DionisiaAlvarez-u2w]

Thanks for your videos

[@jacobstc]

What you have shown applies mostly to the citation form (pronunciation according to the dictionary). The syllable which receives the primary stress must carry a pitch (usually high, but could be low) which falls.

[@Englishpronunciationroadmap]

Hi Jacob, thanks for your valuable comment. You're completely right. The stressed syllable is accompanied by a change in pitch. Whilst it can be a lower pitch, in standard British English it is mostly a higher pitch. Thanks, And enjoy the channel. Ashley

[@c.beverleynembhard2736]

Excellent! That really fills a gap.

[@jacobstc]

English Pronunciation Roadmap Ashley, regarding the syllabification in the polysyllabic words you have presented, viz a.head, a.men.ded, ra.di.a.tor, a.bbre.vi.at.ed, au.tho.ri.ta.ri.an, they are in reality ortho-phonetic syllables, in contrast to orthographic (written) and phonetic (spoken) syllables. An orthographic syllable consists of a group of letters in spelling. When a word is split across two lines of writing, it is broken at an orthographic syllable boundary, such as: a.head, a.mend.ed, ra.di.a.tor, ab.bre.vi.at.ed, au.thor.i.tar.i.an. In some cases, an orthographic syllable boundary may not align exactly with a phonetic syllable boundary. In your video: a.mend.ed (orthographic syllables) versus a.men.ded (ortho-phonetic syllables); ab.bre.vi.at.ed versus a.bbre.vi.a.ted; and au.thor.i.tar.i.an versus au.tho.ri.ta.ri.an, respectively. Most English teachers (you are an exception of course) do not know the existence of phonetic syllables, and in teaching pronunciation to their students, have erroneously taken the orthographic syllables ( which they probably copied from dictionaries) and treating them as if they were ortho-phonetic ones (the spelling equivalent of phonetic transcriptions). That is the reason why specialist pronunciation dictionaries (Daniel Jones' English Pronouncing Dictionary and John Wells' Longman Pronunciation Dictionary) do not even bother to show orthographic syllabification.

[@jacobstc]

English Pronunciation Roadmap Ashley, regarding the syllabification in the polysyllabic words you have presented, viz a.head, a.men.ded, ra.di.a.tor, a.bbre.vi.at.ed, au.tho.ri.ta.ri.an, they are in reality ortho-phonetic syllables, in contrast to orthographic (written) and phonetic (spoken) syllables. An orthographic syllable consists of a group of letters in spelling. When a word is split across two lines of writing, it is broken at an orthographic syllable boundary, such as: a.head, a.mend.ed, ra.di.a.tor, ab.bre.vi.at.ed, au.thor.i.tar.i.an. In some cases, an orthographic syllable boundary may not align exactly with a phonetic syllable boundary. In your video: a.mend.ed (orthographic syllables) versus a.men.ded (ortho-phonetic syllables); ab.bre.vi.at.ed versus a.bbre.vi.a.ted; and au.thor.i.tar.i.an versus au.tho.ri.ta.ri.an, respectively. Most English teachers (you are an exception of course) do not know the existence of phonetic syllables, and in teaching pronunciation to their students, have erroneously taken the orthographic syllables ( which they probably copied from dictionaries) and treating them as if they were ortho-phonetic ones (the spelling equivalent of phonetic transcriptions). That is the reason why specialist pronunciation dictionaries (Daniel Jones' English Pronouncing Dictionary and John Wells' Longman Pronunciation Dictionary) do not even bother to show orthographic syllabification.

[@jasminerusselalday8566]

Hi! thank you for making this video. I used this as a reviewer to my past exam for my career. I hope i can talk to you too.

[@ivanashmedtje2643]

El tema que más me costó, un genio!gracias!!

[@schrubertstranger6727]

I really appreciate it solve what has been bothering me

[@tanminc.7540]

It helped to clear my basic doubt. Thanks Sir !

[@hajernanoucha4068]

you speak magnificently

[@jellystickman]

Very helpful. Thank you very much!

[@saloksingh249]

Stressed syllable is prominent also in a sentence if u put emphasis on delivering of your main message to other. U will always stressed that syllable about which u want to deliver the message and meaning to other. So simple

[@katieomggirl2144]

You just got a new subscriber!

[@r.s.3760]

very useful video, still struggling with how to find the stress of a syllable

[@freakybobskibirizzinohio]

You find it yet?

[@shaynasheikh4832]

Great explanation, thanks!

[@guadalupejain3101]

i have learned so much since i ve watch tyour videos thanks for your help

[@jf9792]

Hello,thanks So much for all your videos especially the stress ward.

[@Englishpronunciationroadmap]

Glad to help, thanks.

[@danieladani3479]

Very helpful your video. Thank you!

[@naqeebkhan3421]

Hello sir! Love from Pakistan .. would you please upload a vedio which tells us where to stress a syllable in a word . I means how would we know that which syllable is stressed ??

[@lunetadu3270]

How do I know which syllable have to stress? What is the rule?

[@majaykhan9075]

It helped me alot.....looking forward for more good videos.

[@marianavm2355]

Thank you so much!!

[@larosesauvage7264]

thanks that was really helpful

[@roxanagerebenes1589]

Very useful. Cheers.

[@ertugrulmaz1163]

The most important thing is how to understand the stress on the word heard? Of course we should listen native speakers but is there any pratice way?

[@cheersloth3077]

So helpful thank you i was in the zone of confusion!!! 🙏🧠👍

[@maisiecassiel4407]

i like your presentation ......please i need more information about stressed syllables..thnx in advance

[@walakhaled8998]

Hey there, firstly thanks for the help. Honestly did help me alot, i have exams this week and i have phoentics as one of my subjects. I have never studied phoentics before and getting alittle confused and muddled up here as my test is tomorrow i would like to ask you if you could explain to me these sort of questions my professor has given me Mark the primary stress in the following: village, society, talkative, suffragette, classify, passion, anxiety universal, career and economics

[@Englishpronunciationroadmap]

Hi Wala, I'm sorry not to have responded sooner. I hope the exam went well. In case you're still struggling: VILL.age so.CI.e.ty TAL.ka.tive suff.ra.GETTE CLA.ssi.fy PA.ssion an.XI.e.ty u.ni.VER.sal ca.REER e.co.NO.mics hope that helps.

[@cleiabento248]

Thank you so much for briliant explanation about how to estress asyllables.

[@hallakhalid6304]

I found it very useful

[@Lifeofemotion]

Could you further explain about nonsyllabic?

[@sauravrajput5430]

could you please explain difference between two types of rythem.. (1) syllable timed rythem &(2) stress timed rythem..

[@ruponbasumatary5982]

Wonderful

[@guestmikeyx8537]

great explanation

[@lalitsharma607]

Thanks for making this video, it's really helpful....

[@Sasjuh1992]

Very helpful, thank you!!

[@hussambooss7258]

Thank you for your efforts 👍👍👍

[@lamaan9414]

Thanks for the lecture. Please note that you wrote frustrating as fru.STRA.ting alone and then wrote it as frus.TRA.ting in the sentence. Which is the correct form?

[@sharonjuniorchess]

How do you know which syllable to stress?

[@abdiazizmursalyusuf8718]

Thanks brother

[@NikolayFilevskiy_teacher]

Thank you very much!

[@danielamolina4923]

thanks for the vid! very useful!

[@limitless1692]

great thanks a lot for making this video

[@zv54]

In all seriousness, do you have any last minute advice for very overdue, amateur Edexcel GCSE English Language Revision for a mature student?

[@zeinabalmohammad161]

Thanks alot sir...

[@angelawright8490]

you speak beautifully. I love the British accent.

[@jellystickman]

Me too

[@sue_uk]

Thank you for your video, it’s really helpful. I am not just clear about that when I start to reading with loud, I missing something, I can’t catch the syllabls and makes my intonation wrong, following this, my reading is not being melodic. Also when I see the a word first time, how can I understand the stress? I mean, I couldn’t understand vowels and consonant connection part.. I’ll watch this video again and again until I do it the best:) Could you help me for this, please? Thank you.

[@h.b1258]

Thank you :) really helped me.

[@Devil_Dog_Ultra]

Thank you for the video. Although i speak english fluently with no accent, im not going to lie... This is sorcery, maybe its because i dont have an ear for pitch? i have a language exam in esperanto next week and one portion is on stressed syllables, so i think im going to fail that part.

[@rassism1]

Thank you so much

[@MahmoodHussain1818]

HI, Sir your videos are incredibly informative. I'm a "Natural Language Processing" researcher I want to cite your literature if you have published. May I get links of your published documents on Intonation, Inflection, Tone and stressed syllables etc ?

[@MahmoodHussain1818]

I meant to say any research paper published in Journal or conference proceeding?

[@EnglishEN]

1000 Basic English Words (01) 👉 سلسلة تعلم 10 كلمات يوميا نطقا و فهما مع أمثلة kzbin.info/www/bejne/jmOmlYeGd6aXosU

[@nabetlaurence8926]

thanks a lot

[@walakhaled8998]

Why do some use (') to show the stress and some use caps ? are they the same thing?

[@Englishpronunciationroadmap]

Hi Wala, yes, they are. In phonetics, you will see (') for the primary stressed syllable and (,) for the secondary stressed syllable. Hope that helps.

[@adc1407]

What are caps ?

[@hussambooss7258]

Do you have videos about intonation patterns (raising and falling ) please tag me in if so , and thanks in advance

[@ljbol]

here you go kzbin.info/www/bejne/j2S2hZt3ftWJiMU

[@Englishpronunciationroadmap]

Thank you Dayu!

[@nafisairfani1107]

it was nice video on the main stress but can you do a video on the secondary stress of a syllable?

[@Englishpronunciationroadmap]

That's a great idea, thanks, I'll get onto it. Keep watching out for new videos every Tuesday at 8.30pm GMT.

[@hafssahadil9120]

thank you 😊😊

[@adc1407]

But how can I know wich syllable I should stress ?

[@desmorgens3120]

English is a stress-timed language. Therefore, "stress", together with syllables, is an important topic in learning spoken English. However, this is not taught in Indonesia. We just focus on silent reading only because English is considered a foreign language here, so it is not spoken every day here.

[@aktortifanridnoprabupratam5236]

When the words have one-syllable, shall we stress those words? or just say them by dropping off the tone?

[@Englishpronunciationroadmap]

Thanks for your comment. It depends whether the word is stressed in the sentence. Typically, verbs, nouns, adjectives and adverbs are stressed in a sentence. So if I said, "I really want to SING", 'sing' would be stressed and the pitch would rise and then very slightly fall at the end, because it is a statement. I hope that helps. Here are some playlists containing other videos I've made about this subject: kzbin.info/aero/PLPq7hDc-HihT3kL9hHGVe_5KzUZD9gUdb and kzbin.info/aero/PLPq7hDc-HihS4H9d60Yy9CmNnuosYA65H

[@receivedSE]

"A syllable having a consonant after and before it", for example: /bɪ/ + /ˈgɪn/ = /bɪˈgɪn/ (begin) "A syllable having a consonant cluster", for example: /ˈstjuː/ + /dnts/ = /ˈstjuːdnts/ (students)

[@catson6041]

Have you noticed that something flew a small dot from his nose to left top at 3:14 I just wondered what it is :)

[@fernandocabrera3300]

what is that white point in the minute 3:11?

[@EnglishwithUrvashi]

Hi, I have been observing that there is no word with two or more syllables that ends an aa sound, so if the spelling ends with a then it takes the schwa sound. e.g. India, China, Pizza, Visa, Charisma, Banana. The mentioned words are ending with a, however all these words takes a schwa sound instead. Please let me know if my observation is correct.

[@Englishpronunciationroadmap]

I can't think of any words that end in an unstressed 'a' letter that aren't pronounced with the schwa, but there may of course be exceptions. Some (but not all) words that end in "ar" do have the long 'aah' vowel though: agar & radar are two I can think of from the top of my head. But sugar, vinegar, insular etc all end in the schwa. Hope that helps.

[@tybg8135]

Allah

[@rendlew5722]

Thanks for the video! Something I noticed is that 'frustrating' has a different stressed syllable in (Western) American English: I say FRU.stra.ting, you say frus.TRA.ting. Interesting...

[@h99-f]

How will we come to know ...which one to be stressed?

[@ismaelmuosa5801]

wonderful

[@sandhya2970]

Thankyu sir👍👌

[@nailahandreapineda5594]

Is the word "I" accented? Thanks

[@mohammadtahirhaand6544]

it help me a lot, but i am confused in in its tree, i mean onset and coda, N

[@Englishpronunciationroadmap]

Hi Mohammad, can you help me by explaining your question in more detail? I look forward to hearing from you. Ashley.

[@mohammadtahirhaand6544]

hi sir: my question is how can we make the tree of a syllable, in order to identify the O,N,CD or Rime more clearly. we have multi syllable words that made me confused to diagram it. hope u get my question clearly.

[@thaismonteiro5828]

Muito bom!

[@pinnacleexpress420]

First two and a half minutes shouldve been left out. After that, your explanation was great and really helped me understand this concept.

[@rannabangaliana302]

Make more videos on stress

[@hohonenne3003]

is there any way to find out how many syllable are there in a word

[@Englishpronunciationroadmap]

In a pronunciation dictionary, syllables are often marked with a dot, like this (.). Otherwise, when speaking a word out loud, question how many vowel sounds you hear, and that should tell you how many syllables there are in a word. I hope that helps.

[@FLAMEFF_917]

Ejwi

[@marciabu5284]

This is my situation , some words are difficult for me to identify the stressed syllable, I can distinguish it when I'm hearing the word but when I read it (some ) I can't 😭 help !

[@TheCuteRibbon1]

Marcia Bu hey there, I started studying English Languages and Literatures, and from what I have gathered from my courses, this is absolutely normal. It is very hard to know how to correctly pronounce an English word when only knowing it from reading, say, a book. The thing which helps me is listening to the recording of an individual word on Leo.org. Once you have heard it it is rather easy to keep this word in mind and add it to your vocabulary.

[@TheCuteRibbon1]

Marcia Bu Of course you could also identify the feet of a word by analysing the the individual syllables of the word concerning their vowel sounds. Every syllable has a vowel sound/element carrying sound, otherwise it is not a syllable. (note: sometimes certain types of consonants can carry sound, which can make them a proper nucleus. A nucleus is the element in a syllable that carries the most sound, so, more often than not this is a vowel). After having identified the nuclei of a word, you can identify full and lax vowels and reduced vowels. Reduced vowels hardly ever carry stress, whereas full and lax vowels do most of the time. There are unary, binary and ternary feet. When you look at the word you are trying to analyse, you focus on the stressed vowels (or consonants) and circle them. Now, see if you can find reduced vowels to the right of a full vowel. When you find reduced a reduced vowel that is to the right of a full vowel, you link it with the full vowel. Sorry, this description is not complete. Also, I only brought it forward because I am currently studying for me linguistics exam next Monday. I need to know this stuff. If you want to try and understand what I have been trying to say: google feet analyses for English words. Maybe that helps :P

[@nouralmousa8631]

Thanks♡

[@n2dir]

thanks a lot ! (y)

[@suchetalahane4752]

Particulary good for natives.

[@AmouRAMV]

Thanks a bunch ♥️...!! (Here's nothing stressed right)...!!

[@phuongthaopham6574]

Can yow show me the way to pronounce some clusters of consonants ? thanks so much!!!!

[@Englishpronunciationroadmap]

Thanks, great idea. I'll add it to my list.

[@farshidvarno4982]

Frustrating has 3 syllables: frus-tra-tion but in the video, it is shown as fruSTRA.ting! "STRA" is not a syllable by itself, is it? So, what's going on?

[@yasmintoure2917]

Your the Fri kin best

[@anweshaaditi2155]

What is the stressed syllable in Illegal Mistake Many Relation Moment Mountain...🤔🤔😣😣😣😣😥😥😥😥😥😥😥😥😥😥😥😥😥

[@Englishpronunciationroadmap]

Primary stress is marked in IPA by putting a raised vertical line [ˈ] at the beginning of the syllable. Check it out at the bottom of the Oxford definition pages: en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/illegal So /ɪˈliːɡ(ə)l/ means the stress is on /ˈliː/ Hope this helps you and others in the future!

[@HeatherLeach2016]

look it up

[@maryribeiro9354]

Ohhh teacher, I ama from Brazil and stressed syllable is so hard to understand!

[@pihoochauhan3208]

How we know stressed is it

[@JoeAC5000]

Are there any words that have multiple stressed Syllables?

[@Englishpronunciationroadmap]

Hi, yes some 3+ syllable words have one (sometimes more) secondary stresses, e.g. the primary in 'apologetic' is a.po.lo.GE.tic - with the secondary stress is on 'po'. There are some useful patterns here which we explore in our Roadmap Training. Hope that helps!

[@maryscheel3447]

Good

[@aprilsanico6866]

Ty