Intonation

Kindly tell me more about proper "Intonation" with regard to English language

[Naamplao]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Kindly tell me more about proper "Intonation" with regard to English language

Intonation is very important in Speaking English. It takes the form of stressing certain words in a sentence to give a proper meaning. A simple sentence can have several meanings depending on which word is stressed.

For example I will bold the stressed word in each sentence below, I won't end the sentence with punctuation as this would be a clue as to the meaning. We are talking about Speaking/Listening English here. In Writing/Reading English we use punctuation to indicate the meaning of the sentence.

You are going. (flat tone all words equally stressed - just a statement of fact.
You are going. (someone points to you in a group saying this to tell you that you have been selected)
You are going. (Someone may have told you that you are not going, but I confirm you are)
You are going. (this is a command, you have no choice in the matter)
You are going. (stressed with a rising tone - this is a question. "Are you really going?...I don't believe it.")

So you can see that just three little words in a sentence have a huge range of meaning depending on which word is stressed. Intonation is very important in Speaking English.