手把手教你学口语03

Welcome to Daily Tips on Learning English. Today’s tip is on stressed and unstressed syllables².

Every English word has more than one syllable¹, and every complete sentence has at least one stressed syllable.

A stressed syllable is pronounced more prominently than surrounding syllables. Simply put, we say it louder and we lengthen³ the vowel⁴ sound. Unstressed syllables are just the opposite. They are not as loud and the vowel sound is usually reduced. Vowel sounds are most often reduced to “э”or to “ⅰ”. For example, in the word “purpose”, the first syllable is stressed, and the vowel of the second syllable can be reduced to either “э”as in “purpose” or “i” as in “purpose”. Let me give you a complete sentence. “I didn’t do it on purpose.” “I didn’t do it on purpose.” The following word has three syllables. Which syllable is stressed? “banana”. That’s right. The second syllable is stressed. Listen now for the lengthening⁵ of the vowel in the stressed syllable. “bana-na”, “bana-na”. It’s very important to stress the proper syllable, to lengthen stressed syllables, and to reduce unstressed vowels⁶. This is essential if you want to achieve a proper English rhythm. If every syllable is given equal stress and length, what you will sound like is a robot. “I didn’t do it on purpose.” “I didn’t do it on purpose.” Proper rhythm comes from stressing only certain syllables, and lengthening those syllables, while reducing the others.

Listen again to the example sentence, and notice how only certain syllables are stressed and lengthened⁷. “I didn’t do it on purpose.”……

We will talk about how to figure out what syllables or words to stress at the sentence level in an upcoming program. But today’s tip is to make sure when you learn words of more than one syllable, you give special care to learning which syllable or syllables are stressed, and to remember to lengthen the vowels in those syllables.

This has been today’s daily tip on learning English. Tune⁸ in tomorrow for another tip.

1 syllable   

n.音节；vt.分音节

参考例句：

• You put too much emphasis on the last syllable.你把最后一个音节读得太重。
• The stress on the last syllable is light.最后一个音节是轻音节。

2 syllables   

n.音节( syllable的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• a word with two syllables 双音节单词
• 'No. But I'll swear it was a name of two syllables.' “想不起。不过我可以发誓，它有两个音节。” 来自英汉文学 - 双城记

3 lengthen   

vt.使伸长，延长

参考例句：

• He asked the tailor to lengthen his coat.他请裁缝把他的外衣放长些。
• The teacher told her to lengthen her paper out.老师让她把论文加长。

4 vowel   

n.元音；元音字母

参考例句：

• A long vowel is a long sound as in the word"shoe ".长元音即如“shoe” 一词中的长音。
• The vowel in words like 'my' and 'thigh' is not very difficult.单词my和thigh中的元音并不难发。

5 lengthening   

（时间或空间）延长，伸长( lengthen的现在分词 )； 加长

参考例句：

• The evening shadows were lengthening. 残阳下的影子越拉越长。
• The shadows are lengthening for me. 我的影子越来越长了。 来自演讲部分

6 vowels   

n.元音，元音字母( vowel的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Vowels possess greater sonority than consonants. 元音比辅音响亮。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• Note the various sounds of vowels followed by r. 注意r跟随的各种元音的发音。 来自超越目标英语 第3册

7 lengthened   

（时间或空间）延长，伸长( lengthen的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The afternoon shadows lengthened. 下午影子渐渐变长了。
• He wanted to have his coat lengthened a bit. 他要把上衣放长一些。

8 tune   

n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整

参考例句：

• He'd written a tune,and played it to us on the piano.他写了一段曲子，并在钢琴上弹给我们听。
• The boy beat out a tune on a tin can.那男孩在易拉罐上敲出一首曲子。