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A Quiet Walk In Nature - Quick Study: Word Stress

Mar 22, 2024

 
Today's’ 1% everyday improvement: Quick Study:  Word Stress.
 
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Putting stress in the wrong parts of a word can range from being a minor error that:
  • Just sounds odd but, could be understood in the context of the whole sentence, 
  • A major error that makes a sentence either misunderstood entirely, or, especially if there are a number of words mispronounced,  not understood at all.
Something to remember about word stress:  

Syllables.
It’s the number of sounds that you hear within a word.

The stress of words = the emphasis, or energy, that you give to one of the sounds in a word that has more than one sound within it. 

All syllables have at least one vowel sound in it.

In the following sentence, let’s identify the two syllable words:

"Take a quite walk with Mother Nature. It will nurture your mind, body, and soul."

 What are the two syllable words? The words with two sounds in them:

  • Mother
  • Nature
  • Nurture
  • Quiet
These words, except for “quiet” are nouns.  “Quiet”, in this case, is an adverb. 

Most two-syllable nouns, adjectives, and adverbs have the stress on the first syllable. You are emphasizing, giving energy, to the first syllable.

MO ther
NA ture
NUR ture
QUI et

Give it a try!

Remember, it is one word with two sounds, so do not pause between the two sounds, they flow together to make one word.

MO ther
Mother

NA ture
Nature

NUR ture
Nuture

QUI et
Quiet

Now put them back into the sentence.

Take a quiet walk with Mother Nature. It will nurture your mind, body, and soul.

Now, where is the sentence stress?
Tip: What words have the most energy to match the meaning?  

Give it a try!
 
 
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And that’s your 1% for the day.

How was it?
 
 
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>>Nurture = you are overseeing the development, growth, of something or someone, raising or caring for something or someone

Example: “She’s a great animal doctor, nurturing that sick bird back to full health.”

A word not pronounced the way that it appears;  there is a ‘ch’ sound in the second syllable.  
If you are a person that uses the IPA spelling: /nûr′chər/.

>>Quiet is a noun, adjective, adverb and verb.
For you IPA users: /kwaɪ.ət/


*Image from:

© <a href='https://www.123rf.com/profile_volff'>volff</a>, <a href='https://www.123rf.com/free-images/'>123RF Free Images</a>

 Audio visuals: Video by Caelan Kelley from Pixabay
Sound Effect by MD Jahid Hossain from Pixabay

This column was published by the author in their personal capacity.
The opinions expressed in this column are the author's own and do not reflect the view of Cafetalk.

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