Learning Stressed Syllables: A Few Tips

Let’s take the same words we used in our earlier lesson and explain what a stressed syllable is since we already broke these words down into syllables.

Words with only one syllable (monosyllabic) DO NOT have a stressed syllable.

But there is always at least one stressed syllable in a word with 2 or more syllables.

If you don’t pronounce the stress in a word, people won’t understand you.

A Few Examples

FAST (1 Syllable)
PER-son (2 Syllables)
BEAU-ti-ful (3 Syllables)
in-for-MA-tion (4 Syllables)
BREAK-fast (2 Syllables)
ba-NA-na (3 Syllables)
to-MOR-row (3 Syllables)
un-i-VERS-i-ty (5 Syllables)

I really want to get this into your head, so we are going to go through a few more words a couple more times. I want you to bear with me so you really understand this, so you can not only flow and write better but you can become a speed rapper much easier.

A Few More Examples

to-DAY (2 Syllables)
MIN-ute (2 Syllables)
in-ter-REST-ing (4 Syllables)
ex-PEN-sive (3 Syllables)
com-MU-ni-cate (4 Syllables)

Rule Of Thumb #1

A noun is a person place or thing.

Nouns with more than one syllable usually have the stress on the first syllable:

PER-son (2 Syllables)
BREAK-fast (2 Syllables)
MIN-ute (2 Syllables)

Rule Of Thumb #2

A verb expresses an action, state or the relation between two things.

Verbs with two syllables usually have the stress on the second syllable:

for-GET (2 Syllables)
be-GIN (2 Syllables)
de-CIDE (2 Syllables)

Rule Of Thumb #3

Words with three syllables usually have stress on the first syllable:

INT-eres-ting (3 Syllables)
BEAU-ti-ful (3 Syllables)
A-ny-one (3 Syllables)

NOTE: This rule doesn’t always apply but is still helpful.

Rule Of Thumb #4

Words with four or more syllables usually have stress in the middle of the word, not the first syllable or last syllable:

in-ter-REST-ing (4 Syllables)
com-MU-ni-cate (4 Syllables)
un-i-VERS-i-ty (5 Syllables)
in-for-MA-tion (3 Syllables)

NOTE: This rule doesn’t always apply but is still helpful.

Rule Of Thumb #5

A word ending with ‘ing’ will never have the ‘ing’ part of the word stressed:

HAV-ing (2 Syllables)
MAK-ing (2 Syllables)
TAK-ing (2 Syllables)
BREAK-ing (2 Syllables)
MAT-ing (2 Syllables)
POK-ing (2 Syllables)
STROK-ing (2 Syllables)
WEDD-ing (2 Syllables)

Rule Of Thumb #6

Look where the vowel is in the word. Vowels are usually said for longer and at a higher pitch so that is probably where the stress sits in the word.

HAP-py (2 Syllables)

Rule Of Thumb #7

The syllable in a word that can’t stand on its own is the unstressed syllable:

un-LESS (2 Syllables)

‘Un’ by itself is not a word and cannot stand on its own so it’s the unstressed syllable.

‘Less’ is a word and can stand on its own so it’s the stressed syllable.

Rule Of Thumb #8

The syllables in a word that are said faster are the unstressed syllables. The stressed syllable is the syllable that is pronounced slower but is more emphasized:

Eve-ry-DAY (3 Syllables)
Eight-y-ONE (3 Syllables)

In each example, you should have noticed how quickly you pronounce the unstressed syllables, before pronouncing the slower yet more stressed syllable.