ESLAN Mastering Sentence Stress in English: 6 Rules
ESLAN Mastering Sentence Stress in English: 6 Rules sets out six rules for deciding which words to stress, on the articles section of ESLAN, an English language school. The rules cover content words, function words, new information, repeated information, numbers and negatives, and contrast. Each one comes with a worked example sentence and a short explanation of what changes.
100% Free (unlimited): Open to anyone with no account and no payment. All six rules, their example sentences and the explanations of what each stress choice changes are on the page, with a video version of the same lesson linked from it.
How It Helps Your Business English
Six rules, in order. Stress the content words. Leave the function words unstressed. Stress new information. Stop stressing information once it is known. Stress numbers, negatives and the end of questions. Use stress for contrast and correction. The fourth and sixth rules carry short exchanges that show the same sentence changing meaning as the stress moves.
Read each rule with its example and say the sentence aloud twice, once with the stress where the rule puts it and once with the stress somewhere else, so you hear what moves. Rules three and four work best as a pair, since they describe the two halves of one conversation. Use rule six on sentences where you have been misunderstood before.
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