In the last article, I began discussing word stress and vowel reduction in American English speech. Now, I will give the wordy answer to a question I get asked very often by clients who wish to improve their American English pronunciation: “But what are the RULES for determining American English word stress?!” While it does help to know the rules, keep in mind that there are many exceptions to these rules, and that you will not analyze each word you are about to use in conversation when speaking to someone- you are truly better off to train your ear to hear the patterns in the language, and attempt to produce the words in the same way as a native speaker. Nonetheless, I present you with 10 helpful rules below:

1. Stress can only fall on a vowel, not a consonant. The vowel will be produced louder and longer than the other vowels.
2. There is always one (and only one) syllable with primary stress per word- so if a word has only one syllable, that vowel will be default by stressed.
3. In most 2-syllable nouns (person, place, thing), the stress falls on the first syllable- for example: SO-fa, SLI-pper, or OB-ject.
4. In most 2-syllable adjectives (describing words), the stress also falls on the first syllable- for example: PRE-tty, FU-nny, or WORLD-ly.
5. In most 2-syllable verbs (action words), the stress falls on the second syllable- for example: con-FIRM, sup-PORT, or ob-JECT.
6. In most words ending in “ic”, the stress falls on the second to last syllable- for example: pho-to-GRAPH-ic, te-le-PHON-ic, or i-DYL-lic
7. In most words ending in “tion” and “sion”, the stress also falls on the second to last syllable- for example: im-PRES-sion, de-sig-NA-tion, or ap-par-I-tion.
8. In most words ending in “cy”, “ty”, “gy” and “phy”, the stress falls on the third to last syllable- for example: pho-TO-gra-phy, ex-PEC-tan-cy, or cu-ri-O-si-ty
9. In most words ending in “al”, the stress also falls on the third to last syllable- for example: phen-O-men-al, TECH-ni-cal, or a-stro-NO-mi-cal.
10. In most compound nouns (words made up of two smaller words), the stress falls on the first syllable- for example: BLUE-jay, SUN-flower, RAIN-fall.

Now, for some practice! I suggest you write down where you will instinctually put the stress, and think about whether you are using the pattern of your native language to assign word stress. Then, use the rules above to see if it matches up, and finally, check the answers below.

1. comprehension
2. sentence
3. mother
4. basketball
5. gravity
6. spicy
7. expectancy
8. harmonic
9. ignore
10. emergency
11. sunrise
12. convention

Answers:

1. com-pre-HEN-sion
2. SEN-tence
3. MO-ther
4. BASKET-ball
5. GRA-vity
6. SPI-cy
7. ex-PEC-tan-cy
8. har-MON-ic
9. ig-NORE
10. e-MER-gen-cy
11. SUN-rise
12. con-VEN-tion