English Pronunciation Masterclass | Sentence Stress

Eat Sleep Dreamers today we're going to be having a lot of fun with stress and I'm going

to show you how you can change the meaning of a sentence depending on the word that you

stress. All that is coming right up guys after we meet another Eat Sleep Dreamer.

Eat Sleep Dreamers welcome back to another lesson with me Tom. Today we're looking at

stress and in particular sentence stress. Now English is a stress-timed language. What

does that mean? Well it means that the stressed syllables in a sentence are at regular intervals

and the unstressed syllables are fitted in. So they are shortened down to fit in to the

rhythm of that sentence. For example if I said 'She's from London' you've got four words

there she is from London, four words. But the main stress is on She and London because

the are the most important words. Is and from are contracted so she's is contracted and

then from, I'm using the weak form there. She's from London. So as you can see the most

important words, the words that carry the most meaning are stressed the most. Now why

is this important for you? Well, we use the stress of certain words to carry a lot of

meaning and that's important for you to know a) to understand so if someone is talking

to you and they are stressing a certain word you can understand why they have done that.

And then of course for you to use it as well when you are using spoken English. So today

we're going to look at one sentence of ten words and we're going to change the meaning

of that sentence using stress. Alright, this is going to be really useful, let's get going.

Right our sentence is 'I don't think you should buy a new car' Alright the don't do not makes

it ten words but ok if it's don't contracted nine words. So I'm going to say the sentence

and I want you to think about what's the meaning of how i said it. Alright let's go with the

first one. 'I don't think you should buy a new car.' Ok, what's the meaning of that sentence?

Well first of all the word that i stressed was I and the meaning there or the suggestion

is that I don't think you should buy a new car but maybe somebody else does. So maybe

your friend has suggested it or whoever you are talking about but there stress there is

showing that it's not me that thinks you should buy a new car. Maybe you do, maybe somebody

else does but not me. I don't think you should buy a new car.

'I don't think you should buy a new car.' Alright, so the word that was stressed there

is don't and the reason we did it there is perhaps because you think I do think you should

buy a new car and so I want to stress that actually no no no I don't think you should

buy a new car. It's contrary to what you thought before. I don't want you to buy a new car,

so I'm stressing that the negative there don't. It's almost like saying it's not true that

I think you should buy a new car because I don't. Stress on the don't.

'I don't think you should buy a new car.' So now we're stressing you and the reason

for that is because I don't think that you should buy a new car but I think that somebody

else should buy a new car. So whoever you are talking about but you shouldn't buy a

new car. 'I don't think you should buy a new car.' Ok, so now we are stressing should and

that's really emphasising my advice to not buy a car. So we're stressing the should basically

saying 'don't buy the car' 'I don't think you should buy the car.' Ok, next one 'I don't

think you should buy a new car.' Alright now we're stressing buy and that's really saying

don't buy it, rent it. So we're looking for an alternative verb so rent a car or borrow

a car but don't buy a new car. We're emphasising the buy because we think there's an alternative

verb that you can use there. 'I don't think you should buy a new car.' So now we're stressing

new and the implication here is that I don't think you should get a new one, get an old

one. Ok, so we're stressing new because we think that's the most important thing that

needs to be changed. 'I don't think you should buy a new car, buy an old one or buy a second

hand one. So yeah that's why we're stressing new there.

'I don't think you should buy a new car.' Ok, so there we're thinking well not a car.

So what we are saying there is you should use your money to buy something else. Don't

buy a new car buy a new motorbike or a house or a TV whatever the thing is. So if we think

about this kind of situation in context. Think about maybe you are in a shop, you are in

Zara or H&M or wherever and you've got two t-shirts and you say to your friends. Which

t-shirt do you like, the blue one or the white one? And your friend says 'the blue one'.

Well that is using this stress. They are stressing blue because they want to say the blue one

not the white one. So that's a really good example of how we use stress to negotiate

meaning. Which one shall pick the blue one or the white one? The blue one. So therefore

not the white one, using stress. Another example 'What time does our plane leave, quarter past

or half past?' 'Oh quarter past.' Stressing the quarter there because the alternative

is half past so we're stressing quarter. What time does our plane leave? Quarter past. So

as I said at the beginning guys I think this is really useful for when you are listening

to people speaking and you can understand exactly what they mean but also for your own

spoken English. Start to think about which words you are stressing and which words are

the most important. Alright guys, I hope you enjoyed that. Remember I've got new lessons

every Tuesday and every Friday helping you take your English to the next level. I've

got a Facebook page, I've got an Instagram account check them out and until next time

guys, this is Tom, the Chief Dreamer, saying goodbye.