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Stress-3

britdam007

britdam007

India

“It was a lovely,little,well-furnished apartment in New York”


In the above sentence there are 3 adjectives and one noun. I’d like to know that if I read out the sentence loud which one to stress and which one not to?



Best regards,



Abhishek

05:15 PM Feb 06 2014 |

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Teacher AmySuper Member!

United States

The first syllable of the first adjective carries the stress (“lovely”). However, since the third adjective is also a compound adjective of sorts (“well-furnished”), the “well” will also be stressed.


Best,


Amy

06:38 PM Feb 06 2014 |

britdam007

britdam007

India

Thank you ma’am. Will the noun “apartment” be stressed as well?


Best regards,


Abhishek

03:28 AM Feb 07 2014 |

Teacher AmySuper Member!

United States

Yes, “apartment” is also a stressed word in this sentence.


Best,


Amy

09:49 PM Feb 10 2014 |

britdam007

britdam007

India

But you said that we do not generally stress a noun? Do we?  Is it just  because we are stressing the 1st syllable ‘well’ in well-furnished and leaving out ‘furnished’ unstressed ?



Best regards,


Abhishek

05:45 PM Feb 11 2014 |

britdam007

britdam007

India

If I am not wrong, in New York the York is stressed?



Best regards,


Abhishek

07:22 AM Feb 12 2014 |

britdam007

britdam007

India

1) “First get your thoughts organized and then start speaking”


I’d like to know that in the above sentence which are the words that I should stress and which ones not?


2)  Lucie and I have been working on a monster secret project.


In the phrase “monster secret project” should we stress monster and project and leave out  ’secret’ unstressed? 


And also I think the noun Lucie will be stressed but I am not sure about the pronoun ‘I’. Again the main verb ‘working will be stressed and the auxiliaries ‘have’ and ‘been’ will be left unstressed. Please help me understand and please correct me if I’m wrong?


Best regards,


Abhishek


07:43 AM Feb 12 2014 |

Teacher AmySuper Member!

United States

I have been trying to explain the stress patterns for the example sentences you provide; however, it seems like you are looking for rules that don’t exist. Determining the stress of random sentences is not the best way to analyze language. 


If possible, listen to the English, baby! dialogs and watch other movies in American English. See if you can recognize where the stress is being placed by native speakers. As a native English speaker, I might even change the word I stress in a sentence, depending on what I think is the most important element of the sentence.


For example, in the sentence beginning with “Lucie and I…”, is it more important that Lucie has been working on the project (stress Lucie), that I have been working on the project (stress I) or that we have been doing it together (stress Lucie and I or stress and). These kind of stress patterns cannot be determined without knowing the speaker’s motivation. While I would read sentences in a particular way, depending on how I interpret the sentence, it could be different that the original speaker’s intention. This is part of why the English language is a living communication tool.


Best,


Amy

01:27 AM Feb 14 2014 |

britdam007

britdam007

India

Is it okay if I pronounce the words in English clearly? I mean to say if my pronunciation of English words are phonetically perfect then shall I be understood by the native speakers of English? I find the stress pattern I was discussing with you is quite complex and hard to follow for us (non-native speakers of English) because in my mother-tongue(Bengali) we don’t use much stress to stress any particular words. The problem is the moment I start thinking which words to stress and which ones not to I am loosing on my fluency-skill. Also in my workplace I speak to the Britsh and Canadian people often but they hardly have complained about my accent. When I speak with them I make sure to pronounce the words phonetically correct and they seem to understand me alright. But recently this “stress pattern” is worrying me a lot. Do you think it’s really important for us to get trained on stress-pattern and all? Please advise ASAP?


Best regards,


Abhishek

07:30 AM Feb 14 2014 |

Teacher AmySuper Member!

United States

I do think that clear pronunciation is more important than stress. Especially because stress patterns differ speaker to speaker and between American English and British English speakers as well as among all other nationalities that speak English.


If your words are spoken clearly, any English speaker should be able to understand your speech. I do not think that memorizing (or worrying about) rules for stress patterns is important. Listening to native speakers and modeling that speech might be a helpful excercise, but analyzing example sentences is not.


Best,


Amy

05:57 PM Feb 17 2014 |