Word & sentence stress.
Stress is the heartbeat of English. Hit the wrong syllable and a word can become hard to understand — or change meaning entirely. Tap 🔊 to hear it.
One strong syllable per word
Longer words have one beat that’s louder, longer, and clearer. The rest relax (often to a schwa).
When stress changes meaning
Some words are a noun or a verb depending on the stress:
Sentence stress — the important words
In a sentence, we stress content words (nouns, main verbs, adjectives, adverbs) and rush over function words (articles, prepositions, auxiliaries).
Weak forms
Little words shrink: “to” becomes /tə/, “and” becomes /ən/, “of” becomes /əv/. This rhythm is what makes speech sound natural rather than robotic.
Frequently asked
What is word stress in English? Word stress is the syllable said with more length, volume and pitch. In PHOtograph the stress is on the first syllable, but in phoTOgrapher it moves to the second.
Does stress change the meaning of a word? Yes. Many English words shift meaning and word class with stress, such as the noun REcord and the verb reCORD.