Secret #3: LISTEN! LISTEN! LISTEN!
Students sometimes say: 'I don't listen to the BBC news
on the radio because it's too fast for me and I can't
understand it.' That's a pity! When it's too fast for
you, when you can't understand it, that is exactly when
you NEED to listen to it!!!
How can you improve if you don't listen and practise?
When you were a baby, did you understand your own
language? When you were 3 weeks old, or 2 months, or 1
year, did you understand everything? Of course not! But
you *learned* to understand by *listening*. Think about
it. You learned to understand your own language by
listening, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. After that,
you learned to speak. Then you learned to read. And then
you learned to write. *But listening came first!*
Secret #2: SENTENCE STRESS
Sentence Stress is golden key number two for speaking
and understanding English. With Sentence Stress, some
*words* in a sentence are "stressed" (loud) and other
words are weak (quiet). Look at the following sentence:
We want to go.
Do we say every word with the same stress or force? No!
We make the important words *big* and the unimportant
words small. What are the important words in this
sentence? Yes, you're right: WANT and GO.
We WANT to GO.
We WANT to GO to WORK.
We DON'T WANT to GO to WORK.
We DON'T WANT to GO to WORK at NIGHT.
It's impossible to explain everything about Sentence
Stress in this email. The important thing for you is
that you know it exists and try to learn about it.
Sentence Stress is *very important*!
Secret #1: LEARN ABOUT WORD STRESS
Word Stress is golden key number one for speaking and
understanding English. Word Stress is *very important*.
You can try to learn about Word Stress. This is one of
the *best* ways for you to understand spoken English -
especially English spoken fast.
What is Word Stress?
Take 3 words: photograph, photographer and photographic,
for example. Do they sound the same when spoken? No!
They sound different, because *one* syllable in each
word is "stressed" (stronger than the others).
PHOtograph
phoTOgrapher
photoGRAPHic
This happens in ALL words with 2 or more syllables:
TEACHer, JaPAN, CHINa, aBOVE, converSAtion, INteresting,
imPORtant, deMAND, etCETera, etCETera, etCETera
The syllables that are not stressed are 'weak' or
'small' or 'quiet'. Native speakers of English listen
for the stressed syllables, not the weak syllables. If
you use Word Stress in your speech, you will instantly
and automatically improve your pronunciation and
your comprehension.
If you have an English teacher, ask her to help you
understand Word Stress. Try to hear the stress in words
each time you listen to English - on the radio, or in
films for example. Your first step is to *hear* and
recognise it. After that, you can *use* it!