Accent Diet: Syllable Stress Lesson 6 Practice 2 – #80330

LISTEN

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PRACTICE

Read through the list of rules and practice stressing the correct syllables. These are rules that you can generally apply to English words. Just remember, all English rules have exceptions!
 

Stress on 1st Syllable

Two-Syllable Nouns: ACcess / ADdress

Two-Syllable Adjectives: GORgeous / HAPpy

Two-Syllable Adverbs: PRETty / QUICKly / BADly

Nouns made of two words: PASSword / WHITEboard / HANDshake
 

Stress on 2nd Syllable

Two-Syllable Verbs: apPLY / sugGEST

Verbs made of two words: underSTAND / overFLOW

Two-word adjectives: member-OWNED / long-TERM (stressed on the second word)
 

Stress on multi-syllablic words:

Stress the syllable second from the end:	Stress the syllable third from the end:
[-ic] do-MES-tic, geo-GRA-phic  [-sion] in-VA-sion [-tion] app-li-CA-tion [-stion] QUES-tion [-ing] a-MA-zing	[-cy] de-MO-cra-cy [-phy] pho-TO-gra-phy [-ty] pri-OR-i-ty [-gy] the-O-lo-gy [-al] CRI-ti-cal	[-full] BEAU-ti-ful [-ly] FRE-quen-tly [-ical] tech-no-LO-gi-cal [-able] ad-JUS-ta-ble [-ate] ap-PRE-ci-ate

PRACTICE

Stress on prefixes and suffixes:

Prefixes (a-, un-, be-, in-, pro-, ex-, ob-, dis-, re-) are usually not stressed.
The word they attach to keeps its original stress pattern even when a prefix is attached.

DO → unDO

ACtivate → reACtivate

PROVE → imPROVE

Suffixes sometimes change the stress of a word. (-s, -ed, -ing, -ish, -ly, -ee, -ic).

Stress these suffixes: -eer (ENgine → enginEER) / -aire (QUEstion
→ questionnAIRE)

Do not stress these suffixes: -less (EFfort → EFfortless) / -ing (Open → Opening) / -er (deVElop → deVEloper)

For these suffixes, change the stress in the original word: -graphy (PHOto
→ phoTOgraphy) / -tion (SItuate → situAtion)