CONCEPTMind Your FutureInteractive pronunciation book
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CONCEPTMind Your FutureThese are the symbols you will see in a dictionary. Click any one to hear it. You do not need to memorize them.
Two words in a row can be either one thing or two things, and English tells you which by moving the stress.
A GREENhouse is a glass building for plants. A green HOUSE is a house that is green. Identical words, different meaning, and the only signal is which one is strong.
This happens constantly in professional English: a BLACKboard against a black BOARD, an ENGlish teacher who teaches English against an English TEACHer who comes from England.
Get it wrong and you are not slightly unclear. You have said something different.
Most languages mark compounds with a preposition or a change of word ending, so the idea that stress alone carries the difference is unfamiliar.
The common error is stressing both words equally, which leaves the listener to guess. In many languages this is perfectly normal, since the meaning is carried elsewhere.
The second error is stressing the second word by default, because the last word feels like the natural place for emphasis. That turns every compound into a description.
Stressing both words equally leaves the listener to guess, and stressing the second by default turns every compound into a description.
The rule. If the two words together name one thing, stress the first word. If the second word simply describes the first, stress the second.
One thing: a GREENhouse, a BLACKboard, the WHITE House, a DARKroom. Two things: a green HOUSE, a black BOARD, a white HOUSE, a dark ROOM.
The picture: a compound is a single item with one label on it. A phrase is a thing plus an adjective describing it, and the description is the news.
The test. Ask yourself: am I naming something, or am I describing something? Naming takes the first stress. Describing takes the second.
Then apply it to your own field. List five compounds you use at work, deadline, headcount, cash flow, and check you stress the first word on all of them.
Ask yourself: am I naming something, or describing it? Naming takes the first stress, describing the second. Then check five compounds from your own work.
Play each line and notice where the stress falls and how the melody moves. Pick one to record and compare your own delivery.
Pick anything above, then record yourself saying it. Your recording appears in red over the model in gray. You are comparing shapes, not chasing a score.
How do you decide whether to stress the first word or the second?