Pronunciation 3: syllable stress in sentences that will help you understand stressed syllables

Welcome back to the English Danny channel  and my series on pronunciation. In Part 1  

I talked about syllables and in Part 2 I  introduced the idea of syllable STRESS.  

Starting here in part 3 I’m  going to build on those ideas  

to show how STRESSED SYLLABLES are used  in sentences. In my example sentences,  

STRESS will be marked in the text that you see on  the screen next to me with ALL CAPITAL LETTERS.

In sentences we usually stress the important  words in a sentence. Important words can be  

something like question words, verbs, and words  that answer specific questions. Let’s look at  

some examples. Repeat each sentence after  me, and try to add the stress when you speak.

HOW are you DOING? I’m FINE, THANKS.

Here, we stressed the question word HOW,  the key verb DOING in the first sentence  

and in the second we stressed  the word FINE, which answered  

the person’s question (saying how we were  doing) and the word thanking them to indicate  

our politeness. Here are 5 more example exchanges  showing these principles. Listen and repeat.

WHAT are you DOING today? I’m WATCHING a SHOW.

Will you WAIT for me HERE? SURE, I’ll WAIT.

WHAT KIND of MOVIE do you LIKE to WATCH?

I like COMEDIES and SCIENCE  FICTION. I DON’T like HORROR movies.

WHEN do you USUALLY wake UP?  I USUALLY get UP at NINE.

Now, let’s look at a short exchange  

where someone asks for help. Notice where the  stress is and repeat each sentence after me.

A: HEY, I NEED some HELP. B: WHAT KIND of HELP? 

A: I’m MOVING TOMORROW. Can you  COME BY at FIVE and HELP me MOVE? 

B: SURE, I’ll SEE you at FIVE. A: THANKS a LOT.

In the next video I’ll get more into the  details of stressing words in sentences.  

See you in the next video.