Emphasis, stress and intonation are the key to understanding and being understood when speaking a foreign language.
Spanish, Italian and other languages are syllabic: we pronounce each syllable in each word but English is different.
English is considered a stressed language. What does that mean? It means that, in English, we give stress to certain words while other words are quickly spoken (some students say eaten!).
For example the modal verb "can" is hardly pronounced in:
"They can come on Friday"
On the other hand, when we use the negative form "can't" we tend to stress the fact that it is the negative form by also stressing "can't".
"They can't come on Friday"
(Click to get more information from ESL-About.com)
A good way to practice and get a foreign language stress is repeating short structures such as the following cartoons from the British Council.
Spanish, Italian and other languages are syllabic: we pronounce each syllable in each word but English is different.
English is considered a stressed language. What does that mean? It means that, in English, we give stress to certain words while other words are quickly spoken (some students say eaten!).
For example the modal verb "can" is hardly pronounced in:
"They can come on Friday"
On the other hand, when we use the negative form "can't" we tend to stress the fact that it is the negative form by also stressing "can't".
"They can't come on Friday"
(Click to get more information from ESL-About.com)
A good way to practice and get a foreign language stress is repeating short structures such as the following cartoons from the British Council.
Have fun and select your topic!
No comments:
Post a Comment