When you listen to Americans pronounce words you might notice that they always put a lot of stress or emphasis on one syllable.

That's because English words always have one syllable that is pronounced with more emphasis than the others. The vowel in the stressed syllable is lengthened and clear. The vowels in the other, unstressed syllables are reduced.

Pronunciation teachers call this type of emphasis syllable stress. Most teachers agree that learning to use this correctly is one of the very best ways to improve your English pronunciation and reduce your accent!

There are a series of rules or patterns you can use to decide which syllable to emphasize in English words. In this article I will describe three of these rules.

Three Rules for Syllable Stress in Spoken American English

1. The first part of a a compound word is usually stressed.

Here are some examples: NOTEbook, HAIRcut, AIRport, BATHroom, LUNCHroom.

2. Stress is usually placed on the syllable that contains the root or base word. That means that word prefixes are usually NOT stressed.

Here are a few examples: unPAID, inCLUDE, preDICT, reMIND, inVEST.

3. It also means that word suffixes are usually NOT stressed.

For example: SLOWly, FASTer, SPEAKing, CAREful, WORKable.

Exceptions to the suffix rule are English words of French origin such as: millionAIRE, volunTEER and picturESQUE. These words are stressed on the suffix itself.

If you haven't noticed the way Americans use syllable stress I want you to start to listen for it. Once you can recognize and use this very important feature of spoken American English, the rhythm of your speech will improve. Your accent will be less noticeable and people will be able to understand you much more easily!

Susan Ryan is an American English teacher in Washington, D.C. Visit her Accent Reduction Classroom to learn the rules and strategies you need to know in order to improve the way you speak.

You can also go to her Free Introductory Accent Reduction http://accent-reduction.confidentvoice.com/ course to start learning right away!