Pronunciation II: stress, rhythm and intonation

Why perfect sounds still aren't enough

You can pronounce every sound correctly and still be hard to understand. Try saying development as DE-ve-lop-ment, with the stress on the first syllable. A British or Australian listener has to stop and decode it, because English listeners recognise words by their stress pattern first and their individual sounds second.

That's why the Pronunciation descriptors talk about pronunciation features, not just sounds. From band 6 upwards, examiners listen for:

• Word stress: the right syllable is strong (deVElopment, phoTOgraphy)
• Sentence stress and rhythm: important words stand out and small words are squeezed (I went to the MARket for some FISH)
• Chunking: words grouped into meaningful phrases, with pauses in sensible places
• Intonation: the voice rising and falling to show questions, lists, contrast, certainty and the end of a point

Band 8 is described as using a wide range of these features and sustaining flexible use of them, with only occasional lapses. Bangla tends to give syllables fairly equal weight, with a light stress at the start of the word. As a result, Bangla-speaking candidates often sound flat or mechanical in English even when their grammar and vocabulary are strong. This lesson fixes that.

Word stress: one strong syllable per word

Every English word of two or more syllables has one stressed syllable. That syllable is:

• louder
• longer
• higher in pitch (or it carries the movement of the voice)
• said with a full, clear vowel

The unstressed syllables around it are quieter, shorter and often reduced to a schwa /ə/.

Watch how the stress moves through one word family, and how the vowels change with it:

The first o is a full ‘oh’ in PHOtograph but a weak schwa in phoTOgraphy. Put the stress on the wrong syllable and you usually get the vowels wrong too, which is how a word you know perfectly well can become unrecognisable.

Sentence stress: content words stand out

In a sentence, English stresses the words that carry the meaning and squeezes the rest.

• Usually stressed (content words): nouns, main verbs, adjectives, adverbs, question words (what, why), negatives (not, can't, never) and numbers.
• Usually unstressed (function words): articles (a, the), prepositions (to, for, at, of), pronouns (I, he, it), auxiliary verbs (can, was, have) and conjunctions (and, but).

I WENT to the MARket for some FISH and a COUple of MANgoes.

Read only the capitals: WENT, MARket, FISH, COUple, MANgoes. That's the message. A listener who catches only those words still understands you, which is exactly why stress matters so much for intelligibility.

English rhythm. English tends to keep a fairly regular beat on the stressed syllables and squeezes the unstressed ones in between. Compare:

CATS CHASE MICE.

The CATS have been CHAsing the MICE.

The second sentence has more than twice as many syllables but doesn't take twice as long, because the extra words are said quickly and weakly. Bangla-speaking candidates often give every syllable equal time (The. Cats. Have. Been. Cha. Sing…), which sounds slow and mechanical.

Contrastive stress. Move the stress and you move the meaning:

I prefer TEA. (not coffee)

I prefer tea. (my sister doesn't)

I preFER tea. (but I'll drink coffee if there's nothing else)

Chunking and pausing: help the listener follow you

In the Fluency lesson you saw that chunks help you plan. In Pronunciation, chunks help the listener decode what you say. Each chunk (thought group) usually has:

• one main stress, normally on the last important word of the chunk
• a small pause or change of pitch at its boundary

When I was at SCHOOL / I wanted to be a PIlot / but my EYEsight / wasn't good eNOUGH.

Where to pause: at commas and full stops, before linking words (but, because, so, which), after a long subject (The best thing about living in Dhaka / is the food), and around extra information.

Pauses can change meaning. Compare:

My sister, / who lives in Sylhet, / is a doctor. → I have one sister, and by the way, she lives in Sylhet.

My sister who lives in Sylhet is a doctor. → I have more than one sister, and I mean the one in Sylhet.

Don't over-pause. Pausing after every two words, or reciting an answer like a list, sounds just as unnatural as never pausing at all.

Intonation: what your voice tells the examiner

Intonation is the music of your voice: the way the pitch rises and falls. It tells the listener whether you're asking or telling, whether you've finished, and how you feel. These patterns cover most of what you need in the Speaking test:

Finishing a point. A clear fall at the end of your answer tells the examiner you've finished and it's their turn. Candidates who end every sentence on a level or rising tone sound unsure and leave the examiner wondering whether to wait. In Part 2, finish with a clearly falling final sentence: …and that's why it's still my favourite place in the world ↘.

Sounding engaged, not flat. A narrow, level pitch is one of the clearest signs of a memorised or translated answer. Engaged speakers:

• widen their pitch range on key words: It was ABsolutely packed
• emphasise intensifiers and contrasts: I really didn't expect that · It wasn't cheap, but it was worth it
• let their voice show feeling: interest, surprise, amusement

You don't need to act. Imagine you're telling the story to a friend who is genuinely interested, and your voice will do most of this by itself.