Jill Diamond American English Syllable Stress with Nouns and Verbs
Jill Diamond American English Syllable Stress with Nouns and Verbs explains how two-syllable words that serve as both a noun and a verb change their stressed syllable. Published by American accent coach Jill Diamond on her English Communication Confidence Blog, the post pairs a short video with its full written transcript, worked pairs such as project, present, permit and finance, and a question-and-answer section on the stress of longer words.
100% Free (unlimited): the whole post is open to every reader, with no account and no payment. The video, the complete transcript, the example word pairs and the question-and-answer section all sit on the page itself, and the other pronunciation posts on the blog open on the same terms.
How It Helps Your Business English
A short video lesson and its full written transcript set the noun and the verb pronunciation of two-syllable pairs side by side: project, present, permit, finance, makeup, breakdown and show off. The coach reads each column aloud to bring out the rhythm, then reads across the pair, and builds sentences that hold both forms of the same word. A closing question-and-answer section gives the stress pattern of longer words ending in -ion, -ity and -ual, and names the three elements of syllable stress: length, volume and pitch.
Play the recording and follow the transcript so that you hear each pair before you say it yourself. Reading down one column, as the coach does, fixes a single pattern in your ear; reading across the pair then shows you how far the stress moves. The sample sentences give you both forms of a word in one line, so you can practice the contrast in connected speech rather than on isolated words. The questions at the end give you a pattern you can carry over to the longer technical words you use at work.