Hello again I hope that you're really starting to get the hang of word stress.
It's really important to use correct stress in your words if you stress the wrong syllable.
You make it difficult for your listener to understand you.
In many cases this leads to communication breakdown.
Since native speakers tend to store words in their memory based on their stress patterns.
A word with incorrect stress could be mistaken for a different word or most often just not understood
at all.
So now that you've gotten the idea of stressing the correct parts of words in English we need to learn
what to do with the unstressed syllables.
This is where the Schwamm comes in.
In spoken English there are generally three levels of words stress in the primary stress syllable.
Your vowel is pronounced clearly.
You'll hold it longer and say it louder and at a higher pitch then you would firm vowels.
In other syllables some longer words in English have secondary stress syllables where the vowel is also
said clearly but not held for quite as long a time or said quite as loudly as the bowel and the stressed
syllable.
Now most words with two syllables or more will have at least one unstressed or weak syllable and these
weak syllables.
Your vowel is not at all clear.
You will not be able to tell if it's an a b i o u or what ever it is and it's not important.
Basically not vowels should be quiet short low pitched and not a clear sound.
In this lesson we want to focus on how to pronounce the unstressed syllable or the weak syllable and
what it means to pronounce a vowel unclearly clearly.
Now let me give you some examples.
We're gonna use the words we looked at in part one of this class as you remember.
The primary stress syllable is shown in uppercase letters that is large letters I mean.
So that is a syllable that is loud and long with the clear vowel.
Each of these words also contains one unstressed syllable that syllable is circled in red.
Notice how the vowel is pronounced in these weak syllables.
It's quiet.
It's unclear.
That's the Schwall around
system
company.
Together especially note that there is no consistent spelling of the Schwamm since all weak syllables
no matter how they're spelled are pronounced with this week unclear sound.
In our examples the Schwalbe was spelled with an A in a round and the in-system and a in company and
O went together and with an eye a in a specially.
Now this is one of the biggest challenges in spoken English.
We cannot always rely on spelling to determine correct pronunciation.
Before we do more practice I'd like to teach you how to correctly pronounce the Schwall sound.
Watch as I pronounce it for you.
The mouth and tongue are relaxed so feel your jaw and everything just kind of lay open.
You should feel no muscles no tightness and make sure your tongue is also relaxed.
Open your mouth somewhat not so big but just just a little midways
your tongue is low and it's in the middle so you want to pull it back a little bit from your front teeth.
And your sound will be short and low pitched
Ah I want to make sure that everything is relaxed in your mouth.
How does your tongue feel as it moves soft your mouth feeling loose and soft.
Let's try it again.
Now let's test your ear to see if you can hear the difference between the correct and incorrect pronunciation.
Each of the following two syllable words are in the top 500 most common words in spoken English.
Each one has a primary stress syllable and a weak syllable that's pronounced as a squall.
You will find this same chart of words listed in your workbook.
So please open to that page and find this chart.
And as I read along I want you to circle either a word in column A or column B.
Choose which one you think is pronounce correctly and circle that in your workbook at the end of the
workbook.
You'll find the answers to this quiz but please don't look until you've listened again and again and
are sure you know the correct answers.
So let's get started.
Column A.
Dollars.
Column B.
Don't Lars.
The second one problem
problem
the third
pardon's
pairing
husband husband
to day.
Today
mean new man it's a way a way
when you are confident you know which ones are pronounced correctly.
Please check your answers in the workbook on a final note.
Get in the habit of imitating native speakers to pick up the correct rhythm and melody of English naturally.
Thanks for watching.