Syllable Stress Changes

Mastering the American Accent » Syllable Stress Changes

Syllable Stress Changes

When a word changes from a noun to a verb or to an adjective or adverb, frequently the stress placement changes as well. Listen to these common words that non-native speakers tend to mispronounce (read across).

1.	politics	political	politician
2.	photograph	photographic	photography
3.	compete	competitive	competition
4.	economy	economical	economize
5.	democrat	democracy	democratic
6.	family	familiar	familiarity
7.	necessary	necessarily	necessity
8.	hospital	hospitality	hospitable
9.	origin	originality	original
10.	mechanic	mechanism	mechanical
11.	define	definition	definitely
12.	vary	variety	variation
13.	courage	courageous
14.	probably	probability
15.	geography	geographic
16.	memory	memorial
17.	Canada	Canadian
18.	ignore	ignorance

Sentence Pairs for Practice

Underline the stressed syllables in the highlighted words. To check your answers, listen to the audio.

He likes politics.
He wants to be a politician.
I love photography.
Do you take a lot of photographs?
He studied economy.
He is an economical shopper.
Do you know that family?
Yes, they’re familiar to me.
He is a very good mechanic.
He is fixing the mechanism.
Their opinions vary.
There is a variety of opinions in the room.
We celebrate Memorial Day.
It’s in memory of the veterans.
Do you know the origin of your name?
No, it’s pretty original.
He is a registered Democrat.
He watched the democratic debate on TV.
It is not necessary to do that.
I don’t necessarily agree.
He likes to compete.
He’s always been very competitive.

Practice Paragraph

Underline the stressed syllables in the highlighted words. Check your answers by looking in the dictionary.

American Declaration of Independence

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

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