Word stress rules and practice: which syllable to stress

Practise one line of long words now

Open the word stress exercise

The exercise opens on one line from Shawn Achor’s talk at 3:57: “So one of the first things we teach people in economics, statistics, business and psychology courses” It has four long words, each stressed in a different place: ecoNOMics, staTIStics, BUSiness and psyCHOLogy. Capitals, here and on the rest of this page, mark the stressed syllable. Listen to it, record your version, then open Compare and play your take beside the original.

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What Sada can and cannot tell you

Sada checks which of your words came across and how your timing compares with the speaker. It does not grade individual sounds, stress or pitch, and it does not tell you which syllable you stressed. Stress in the wrong place can make a word hard to recognise, so if a long word keeps showing as missed, check its stress first. But the recogniser often matches a word said with the wrong stress, especially inside a sentence, and it cannot tell PREsent from preSENT, because both are spelled the same. A matched word does not prove the stress was right.

Comparing side by side by ear is the check for stress: play your take next to the speaker and listen, in each long word, for the syllable that stands out in your voice and in theirs. To find the stress of one word on its own, use a dictionary such as Cambridge’s pronunciation dictionary, which puts the mark ˈ before the stressed syllable; for sound-by-sound grading you need a teacher or a tool that scores individual sounds.

What word stress is

In every English word of two or more syllables, one syllable stands out: it is longer and louder, the pitch usually changes on it, and its vowel is said in full. The unstressed syllables around it get shorter, and many of their vowels shrink to a short, relaxed “uh”, the schwa, as at the start of “about” and of “conTENtion”. Knowing the stressed syllable is only half the job; the other half is making the rest weaker.

Why this is hard for Arabic speakers:

• In Arabic, the shape of the word decides the stress: Standard Arabic places stress by rules based on syllable length, so nobody has to learn it word by word. In English, neither the spelling nor any single rule shows it: “proJECtor” is stressed in the middle, “PROperty” at the start.
• Stress moves as the word changes: PHOtograph, then phoTOgraphy, then photoGRAPHic. Learn only the first, and the others are easy to get wrong.
• Reading evens the syllables out: a word learned from the page tends to get every syllable in full, so the difference between the stressed syllable and the rest disappears, or the wrong one stands out.

Word stress rules at a glance

Six rules cover most long English words. Each has exceptions, so check a new word in a dictionary, but together they tell you where to look first:

• Rule 1, -tion, -sion, -ic, -ity: stress the syllable just before the ending (eduCAtion, ecoNOMic, creaTIVity).
• Rule 2, The same word as noun and verb: the noun at the front, the verb at the back (a PREsent, to preSENT).
• Rule 3, Word families: the stress can move as the word grows (PHOtograph, phoTOgraphy, photoGRAPHic).
• Rule 4, Two-syllable words: most nouns and adjectives stress the first syllable (TAble, HAPpy), most verbs the second (beGIN, deCIDE).
• Rule 5, Compound nouns: stress the first part (BLACKboard, AIRport, TOOTHbrush).
• Rule 6, Endings: -ee, -eer, -ese and -ique take the stress themselves (employEE, engiNEER); -ment, -ness, -ful, -less and -ly leave it where it was (HAPpiness); -ate, -ize, -ify, -graphy and -logy put it on the third syllable from the end (comMUnicate, ORganize).

Rule 1: the syllable before -tion, -ic and -ity

Words ending in these suffixes usually stress the syllable just before them, however long the word:

There are well-known exceptions, among them ARabic, POLitics and CATHolic: “Arabic” itself is stressed on its first syllable. When in doubt, check the dictionary.

Rule 2: nouns at the front, verbs at the back

In a number of two-syllable words, the noun is stressed on the first syllable and the verb on the second, with the same spelling. Say each word as a noun, then as a verb:

This holds for particular words, not for every two-syllable word, and some of it varies between accents: “reSULT” and “conTROL”, for example, are stressed at the end as nouns and as verbs.

Rule 3: stress moves inside a word family

When a suffix makes a word longer, its stress sometimes moves, and the vowels change with it: the syllable that was stressed goes weak, and a weak one becomes clear. Say each row from left to right:

Some words also have fewer syllables in speech than their spelling suggests. The stress falls at the start, and a vowel after it disappears:

Rule 4: two-syllable nouns at the front, verbs at the back

Beyond the noun and verb pairs of Rule 2, the same tendency holds for two-syllable words in general. It is a tendency, not a law, so the exceptions are worth learning as you meet them:

Rule 5: compound nouns stress the first part

When two words join into one noun, the first part takes the stress: BLACKboard, BEDroom, AIRport, SUNglasses, TOOTHbrush, BUS stop. This is how a listener hears a compound and a description apart:

Rule 6: endings that take the stress, keep it, or count back

Some endings take the stress themselves, whatever the word was before:

Exceptions exist here too: comMITtee and COFfee end in -ee but are not stressed on it.

Other endings never move the stress: the word keeps the stress it had before the ending was added.

And in words of three or more syllables, a few endings put the stress on the third syllable from the end:

Word stress practice with real lines

Each line opens in Sada at its place in the talk. Before you record, mark the stressed syllable of every long word, then listen: does the speaker stress the syllable you marked?

“So one of the first things we teach people in economics, statistics, business and psychology courses”

Shawn Achor · 3:57 · four long words, four stress patterns: ecoNOMics, staTIStics, BUSiness, psyCHOLogy · Practise this line →

“I'm a social psychologist. I study prejudice, and I teach at a competitive business school,”

Amy Cuddy · 3:44 · psyCHOLogist keeps the stress of psyCHOLogy; PREJudice, comPETitive, and BUSiness in two syllables · Practise this line →

“My contention is that creativity now is as important in education as literacy,”

Sir Ken Robinson · 3:14 · conTENtion, creaTIVity, imPORtant, eduCAtion, LITeracy, from a British speaker · Practise this line →

“Then there's the thing of mystery in terms of imagination -- the withholding of information.”

J.J. Abrams · 9:14 · the -tion rule twice, imagiNAtion and inforMAtion, and MYStery · Practise this line →

“and low-power people experience about a 10-percent decrease.”

Amy Cuddy · 11:56 · exPERience, then the noun “decrease”: dictionaries give DEcrease for the noun and deCREASE for the verb; listen to which syllable she stresses · Practise this line →

Line 3 is British English; for more British speakers, see British accent practice. In line 5, “decrease” is a noun, and some speakers stress that noun on its second syllable, so copy what you hear from this speaker in this line.

Common mistakes of Arabic speakers

• Every syllable the same: “economics” comes out as four equal syllables, and NOM does not stand out. Make the stressed syllable longer and louder, and hurry through the rest.
• The parent word’s stress in its family: “photography” said with the stress of “photograph”, or “psychological” with the stress of “psychology”. Go back to the family table above.
• Full vowels in unstressed syllables: in “conTENtion” and “comPETitive” the first syllable is a short, weak “kuhn” or “kuhm”, not the clear vowel the letter o suggests.
• Extra syllables: “business” has two syllables and “comfortable” three. Lines 1 and 2 both have “business”: count the syllables the speaker says.

How to practise

1. Open an exercise from this guide. Clap the syllables of a word, then say it on its own with the stressed syllable longer and louder: e-co-NO-mics, psy-CHO-lo-gy.
2. Say the words in the tables aloud, keeping the unstressed syllables weak so the stressed one stands out: PREsent, then preSENT; PHOtograph, then phoTOgraphy.
3. Play line 1, mark the stressed syllable of each long word, then say it after the speaker in Repeat mode.
4. Record a take, then open Compare and play your recording and the original. Review words and timing; Sada does not grade individual sounds.
5. Move from short lines to long ones, listening in each long word for the syllable that stands out in your take and in the original, and go back to any line where a long word was missed; its stress may be in the wrong place.

Keep going

The other guides in this series, all written for Arabic speakers: P and B pronunciation, TH sound practice: “think” and “this”, -ed endings pronunciation: t, d or id, V and F pronunciation, Question intonation: rising and falling and Sentence stress: content and function words. All of these problems in order of how much each affects being understood, with one line for each and a short self-check: English pronunciation for Arabic speakers. For more lines to practise, from famous talks: Sir Ken Robinson: Do Schools Kill Creativity?; Conan O’Brien: Dartmouth Commencement Address (2011); Chris Lonsdale: How to Learn Any Language in Six Months. To see what Sada checks in every take, read the pronunciation checker. For a wider plan, with word stress, -ed endings and the weak vowel: how to improve your English pronunciation. For the rhythm of a whole sentence, which words are stressed and which are hurried: how to sound like a native English speaker.

Sources: the stress of each word from the Cambridge Dictionary; what makes a syllable stressed, and “projector” against “property”, from Stress (linguistics); noun and verb pairs from Initial-stress-derived noun; compound nouns stressed on the first part, BLACKbird against black BIRD, from English compound; stress moving in word families, and weak vowels, from Stress and vowel reduction in English; stress in Standard Arabic from Arabic phonology.