Compound Nouns Part 3
Compound Nouns Part 1 explained that compound nouns are stressed on the first word. However, for names and titles, the stress pattern is different. For proper names or official titles, the last word is the […]
Word Stress
Compound Nouns Part 2
Compound Nouns Part 1 explained that compound nouns should be stressed on the first word. Part 2 explains how incorrect stress can sometimes change the meaning of what you are saying. Sometimes, if you put […]
Compound Nouns Part 1
A compound word is two words put together to make a new word. In English there are thousands of compound nouns, so it is good to know a few basic things about them. Compound noun […]
How to stress
Do you know how to stress? I don’t mean feeling worried and stressed out! I mean word stress and sentence stress — what exactly does that mean? Word stress and sentence stress are similar — […]
Homographs Part 3
A homograph is a word that has two different pronunciations, and the different pronunciations have different meanings. The words in Homographs Part 1 have a change in vowel sound, and Homographs Part 2 deals with […]
Chicken or Egg? Phrasal Verbs & Compound Nouns
Many phrasal verbs have a similar looking compound noun. For example, the phrasal verb “take off”, which means “to depart”, corresponds to the noun “takeoff”, which means “departure”. Here they are in sentences: The plane could […]
Phrasal Verbs — The Good News (The Pronunciation)
The pronunciation pattern of phrasal verbs is less complicated than the grammar. Phrasal verbs have a stable, predictable stress pattern, which is: the 2nd word gets the stress. That means that the 2nd part is […]
Phrasal Verbs — The Bad News (The Grammar)
The topic of phrasal verbs includes a little grammar and a little pronunciation. Since the grammar part is more complicated than the pronunciation part, this introduction to phrasal verbs covers the “bad news”. First, what […]
-ate Part 3: Watch out for hidden -ate
If you have already read Part 1 & Part 2 about –ate, then you already know that you should not put stress on the –ate ending. The tricky part is that sometimes the –ate is […]
-ate Part 2: How does it sound?
Graduate, or, graduate… Which is the correct pronunciation? Actually, both are right! The other important thing to know about words with –ate is that the “A” uses two different sounds. The good news is that […]
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