[General] Word with two or more syllables, how to put the stress on?

[yiuho]

Hi All,

I heard that if one english word is more than one syllable, we must put the stress on one syllable and the other syllable should be unstress. For instance, when we say Passport, Pass is stress and Port is unstress, Whitehouse, White is stress and Port is unstress, Anybody, Any is stress, Body is unstress....so on and so on. Even I used Longman Talking Dictionary, it's also same as what I said in the above....but sometimes when I hear CNN,BBC or some hollywood movies, they said Passport, Anybody, Whitehouse, they would put the stress on both syllable, like PassPort, AnyBody, WhiteHouse......how come they would say that in this way? I am very confused....please advise. Thanks.

Regards,

William

[konungursvia]

Unfortunately, you have to learn all our words by heart. The only rule that helps, in about two-thirds of cases, is this:

Nouns: stress the first syllable.
Verbs: stress the second.

[yiuho]

Originally Posted by konungursvia

Unfortunately, you have to learn all our words by heart. The only rule that helps, in about two-thirds of cases, is this:

Nouns: stress the first syllable.
Verbs: stress the second.

Probably you didn't get what I meant. Actually I fully understood that sometimes nouns and verbs have different stress position. For instance, Noun: Increase, stress the 1st syllable "In", but Verb: Increase, stress the second syllable "crease". Sometimes American English and British English also have difference pronunication when the word is same, like Rotate in American Eng, Rotate in British Eng, so I don't agree you mentioned the rule above Nouns: stress the first syllable and Verbs: stress the second cos rules are difference between American Eng and British Eng.

My question was that suppose the words have same syllable stress both in American Eng and British Eng, like Passport, Whitehouse, Somebody, Anybody....sometimes I hear native english speakers say both syllables with stress, like PassPort (Stress on Pass and Port), Whitehouse (Stress on White and House), Whitehouse (Stress on White and house), Somebody (Stress on Some and body), Anybody (Stress on Any and Body), I just wanted to know how come they sometimes speak both syllables with stress? Hope you guys understand what I mean. Thanks.


Regards,

William

[Raymott]

Originally Posted by yiuho

Verbs: stress the second cos rules are difference between American Eng and British Eng.

I have been impressed with your good written English. However, you have used the word "cos" in several posts, and I'm wondering if you think this is a correct word. It isn't.

Actually 'cos' is a variety of lettuce. But I think you mean "because".

R.

[yiuho]

Hi Raymond, thank you for your reminder. Actually my written english is not good enough, sometimes I feel my english vocabularies are limited....I need to spend a lot time to think and express it in English...that's why I joined this english forum to read more..and write more... Hope this would improve my english skill. By the way, I know I always use "cos" word, I realize this word is using in the spoken english but sometimes I see many people use this word in the "WWW" or "Email", that's why I use it all the time. Perhaps I am lazy, I don't use "because". Right now, I just want to learn the causal english because this is a real english and let me communicate with the world. For academic english, I can learn it from textbook...so I don't want to concentrate on it. Raymond, are you English Native Speaker? As I know you are from Australia, I really want to chat with you more and you can correct my English mistakes, thanks a lot.

Regards,

William

[konungursvia]

Hi William, you shouldn't trust your own ear more than that of teachers and writers. American English is quite flat in intonation, but the syllables are correctly accented.

[yiuho]

Originally Posted by konungursvia

Hi William, you shouldn't trust your own ear more than that of teachers and writers. American English is quite flat in intonation, but the syllables are correctly accented.

Thanks Konungursvia. I agree with you. I do think their intonation is quite flat sometimes...I'll train up my listening skill from time to time.....

[raindoctor]

In adj+noun patterns, noun receives primary stress, and this stress can change the primary stress of adj, if primary stress of noun follows that of adj.

Whitehouse, passport, anybody are not typical adj+noun.

,white 'house (a house that is white; white receives secondary stress)
'white,house (where Obama lives)