E P Tips

English Pronunciation Tips

  • About
  • Acknowledgments
  • Ear-training
    • Ear-training 1
    • Ear-training 2
    • Ear-training 3
    • Ear-training 4
    • Ear-training 5
    • Ear-training 6
    • Ear-training 7
  • Intonation
    • How to sound re-assuring
    • Reflexives and the tonic
    • Tonic
    • Wh-questions
  • Mini dictionaries
    • Animals
    • Archaeology
    • Architecture
    • Astronomy
    • Birds
    • Chemical elements A – E
    • Chemical elements F – N
    • Chemical elements O – S
    • Chemical elements T – Z
    • Finance
    • Geography
    • Geological periods
    • Grammatical terms
    • Greek letters
    • Herbs and spices
    • Literary terms
    • Meteorology
    • Music
  • Miscellaneous
    • Affricate sequences
    • Because
    • Berry
    • Change of voicing
    • Close
    • Garage
    • Graph
    • Hello, sailor!
    • Hello, soldier!
    • house
    • Kilometre
    • Months
    • No syllabic n, thank you!
    • Perhaps
    • Regular noun plurals
    • Shrinking words
    • Some flowers
    • Some irregular plurals
    • Stranding
    • Stranding 2
    • That
    • Tricky pairs
    • Use
    • Usual
    • ðz and zð (how to cheat)
  • Names
    • -bo(u)rne
    • -borough -burgh
    • -bury
    • -cester
    • -chester
    • -ese
    • -folk
    • -ford
    • -ham
    • -mouth
    • -ness
    • -port
    • -sex
    • -son
    • -stone & -ston
    • -wich
    • Beautiful places
    • Canada
    • Caribbean
    • Dorset, Somerset
    • Glamis and Wemyss
    • holm, hulme
    • Ireland
    • Keighley
    • Mainwaring
    • More troublesome place-names
    • New places
    • New Zealand
    • Scotland
    • Some given names
    • Some troublesome place-names
    • Two-part place-names
    • USA
    • Wales
  • Oddities
    • Bass
    • Blancmange
    • Broad
    • Brooch
    • Chamber
    • cheese and geese
    • Choir
    • Christ
    • Courtesy
    • Cushion
    • Equation
    • Fever and lever
    • Funny business
    • Gaol and margarine
    • Gross
    • Iron
    • Leisure, seizure
    • Mauve
    • Mayor
    • Meringue
    • Mortgage
    • Quay
    • Scone
    • Shoe
    • Sponge
    • Subpoena
    • Vineyard
    • Wrath
    • Yacht
  • Prefixes
    • Aero
    • bio-
    • By(e)-
    • Cata-
    • Circum-
    • Com-, con-
    • Hyper-
    • Hypo-
    • Mis-
    • Para-
    • Peri-
    • Poly-
    • Tele-
    • Un-
  • Sitemap
  • Sounds
  • Spelling to sound
    • <-se> Episode 1
    • <-se> Episode 2
    • <-se> Episode 3
    • <a> is not ʌ
    • <ai>
    • <al>
    • <au>
    • <bt>
    • <cc>
    • <ch> = k
    • <ch> = ʃ
    • <ea> = e
    • <eak>
    • <ear> = ɜː
    • <ease>
    • <ei> = eɪ
    • <eigh>
    • <eo>
    • <g> = ʒ
    • <gain>
    • <ge> and <gi>
    • <gn>
    • <i> = iː
    • <mb>
    • <ng>
    • <ng> again
    • <o> = uː
    • <on> = ʌn
    • <ood>
    • <ose>
    • <ost>
    • <ou> = uː
    • <ou> = ʌ
    • <ough>
    • <ound>
    • <oup>
    • <our> = ɜː
    • <ove> = ʌv
    • <ove> does not = ʌv
    • <qu> = k
    • <s> = ʒ
    • <ss>
    • <th> = t
    • <ui>
    • <w(h)a> and <qua(w)>
    • <wor> = wɜː
    • Initial <th> = ð
    • Silent <h>
    • Silent <s>
    • Silent <w>
  • Stress
    • -aire
    • -eer
    • -esque
    • -ette
    • -ic and -ical
    • -ity
    • -ocracy
    • -oo
    • -oon
    • -proof
    • -worthy
    • Abbreviations
    • Blue, green, red
    • Roads and Streets
    • Stress variation
    • Stressful Christmas?
  • Symbols
  • Transcriptions
    • Transcription 1
  • Vowels
    • No schwa!
    • Vowel alternation: aɪ ~ ɪ
    • Vowel alternation: eɪ ~ æ
    • Vowel alternation: iː ~ e
    • Vowel alternation: əʊ ~ ɒ
    • ə elision in the first syllable
  • Word endings
    • -(m)ony = (m)əni
    • -(n)gue
    • -ac
    • -ade
    • -age = ɑːʒ
    • -ance
    • -ane
    • -ary and -ory
    • -ate
    • -chief
    • -cious
    • -eous
    • -et
    • -ex(e)
    • -ful(ly)
    • -gm
    • -i = aɪ
    • -ice
    • -ine
    • -ious
    • -ique
    • -ite = ɪt
    • -less
    • -ment
    • -mn
    • -ngle
    • -nomy & -tomy
    • -olic
    • -on
    • -oose
    • -oric(al)
    • -our
    • -our = aʊə
    • -path
    • -pathy
    • -re
    • -sis
    • -sten & -stle
    • -ture
    • -ward(s)
    • Non-silent <e>

Stress variation

English has quite a lot of words which have different stress pattern versions. In some cases this is only true of a word in one class and not of other words with the same spelling which belong to another word-class. So, for example, the word access only has different stress versions if it is a verb. The noun of the same spelling is always ˈækses.

When you start messing around with stress, very often the vowels of a word are affected too, as you can see in the table below.

This is only a small selection of variable stress words. I’ll add to it from time to time.

access ˈækses əkˈses Verb only
adult ˈædʌlt əˈdʌlt
caravan ˈkærəvæn ˌkærəˈvæn
complex ˈkɒmpleks kəmˈpleks Adjective only
contribute ˈkɒntrɪbjuːt kənˈtrɪbjuːt
controversy ˈkɒntrəvɜːsi kənˈtrɒvəsi
distribute ˈdɪstrɪbjuːt dɪˈstrɪbjuːt
finance ˈfaɪnæns f(a)ɪˈnæns
kilometer ˈkɪləmiːtə kɪˈlɒmɪtə
participle ˈpɑːtɪsɪpl pɑ:ˈtɪsɪpl
research ˈriːsɜːtʃ rɪˈsɜːtʃ
romance ˈrəʊmæns rə(ʊ)ˈmæns
submarine ˈsʌbməriːn ˌsʌbməˈriːn

Thanks to Alex Rotatori for comments.
2013_10_07
Updated 2013_10_12

  • Search

  • News

    Latest update: 2015_04_18
    Number of tips: 246
    Number of tips with sound: 42

    Latest changes:

    Updated and added sound to -ese

    Added sound to Funny business

    Added sound to Graph

    Added sound to That

    Added sound to Tricky pairs

  • Flag counter

    Flag Counter
Proudly powered by WordPress Theme: Parament by Automattic.
Scroll