Rhythm He is going to work. Do you want the documents? I’m going to fly to New York at 7 in the morning.
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Read the following sentences while doing the number 8 movement. Ensure you stress the content words by saying them as your hand moves upwards. Don’t stress the function words.
We are essentially making stressed words bigger. Now let’s make the unstressed words smaller: He is → /hiz/
Do you → /djə/ or /ʤə/ going to → /gənə/
Read the above sentences again and ensure you make the function words smaller.
Sometimes we do stress function words for a particular meaning (usually for contrast). Read the following sentences and stress the underlined words:
Is it her laptop or his laptop? I was at home, but now I’ve gone out. I need eggs and flour for the recipe, not just eggs.
We don’t have to stress every content word we see. Just the ones that are most important for meaning. Read the following sentences and stress the underlined words:
I like to eat apples. Do you want to go home? I don’t like to go shopping on Saturdays.
A general guideline is that the more quickly we speak, the fewer words we stress – and vice versa. Go to the next page for more information.