Learn how to use parts of speech to determine where to put the stress on an English word
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Braden: The Most Disorganized American Store in the World |
| Braden: In this lesson, you’ll learn about Using parts of speech to determine word stress. and Frankenstein. |
| Barbara: This conversation takes place in the company stock room. |
| Braden: And it’s between June and Cody. |
| Barbara: The Cody and June are friends and co-workers and not in front of customers, therefore they’ll be speaking informally. |
| Braden: Let’s listen to the conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| June: So, where do these DVDs go? |
| Cody: In the closet on the left, third shelf from the bottom. |
| June: How do you know that? I can't make heads or tails of this system. |
| Cody: It's because I've been working here for five years. There isn't any rhyme or reason to it. Just put in the time. |
| June: Do you think Big John would get mad if I reorganized things a bit? I mean, it's a Frankenstein. At my last job, I built a system that was end-to-end. It unified the entire inventory system. |
| Cody: I'd ask him first. Will it take a long time to implement? |
| June: I don't think so. I doubt it would take more than a week or two. |
| Cody: You should frame your idea around a proposal that will boost sales or impress corporate in some way. He's always looking for improvements that will get him a raise. |
| June: But do you think he'll be frustrated if the entire showroom floor is reorganized? I mean, in the end, it would be almost every department. |
| Cody: He'll probably not care too much since he doesn't deal directly with the system or with clients. He just tells us to do everything, and we do it. Alana might get a bit riled up though. She doesn't like change. |
| June: Which is funny because her hair is a different color every other week. |
| Cody: I know! |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Braden: So, we wanted to talk a little bit about Frankenstein |
| Barbara: Frankenstein was written by Mary Shelby, the wife of the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley in 1818. The story is told through the letters of the man named Walton, and British explorer. |
| Braden: In the story, we are told of Victor Frankenstein, a student from Geneva, who discovers the secret of life. |
| Barbara: He collects bones and bodies from graveyards and makes a person which is more monster than man. |
| Braden: In the dialogue June refers to the showroom inventory as a “Frankenstein.” She is referring to the idea of a mismatched, monstrous, ugly system that, in its grotesqueness, resembles Frankenstein. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Braden: Let's take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. |
| The first word we'll look at is... |
| Barbara: closet [natural native speed] |
| Braden: a piece of furniture or area of a house used to store items |
| Barbara: closet [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Barbara: closet [natural native speed] |
| Next: |
| third [natural native speed] |
| Braden: constituting the number three in some sequence |
| third [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| third [natural native speed] |
| Next: |
| Barbara: bottom [natural native speed] |
| Braden: the lowest point or part |
| Barbara: bottom [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Barbara: bottom [natural native speed] |
| Next: |
| rhyme [natural native speed] |
| Braden: combination of sounds between words |
| rhyme [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| rhyme [natural native speed] |
| Next: |
| Barbara: reorganized [natural native speed] |
| Braden: change the way in which something is organized |
| Barbara: reorganized [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Barbara: reorganized [natural native speed] |
| Next: |
| solution [natural native speed] |
| Braden: a means of solving a problem or dealing with a difficult situation |
| solution [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| solution [natural native speed] |
| Next: |
| Barbara: system [natural native speed] |
| Braden: way of managing or organizing something |
| Barbara: system [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Barbara: system [natural native speed] |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Braden: Let's have a closer look at the usage for some of the words and phrases from this lesson. |
| Barbara: In the dialogue, we heard the adjective “end-to-end.” |
| Braden: “End-to-end” means complete. This is a phrase used frequently in business. It refers to the idea of going from one end of the process to the other. Could you break this down? |
| Barbara: end-to-end (slowly) |
| Braden: And one time fast? |
| Barbara: end-to-end (fast) |
| Braden: Great! What’s next? |
| Barbara: Our next phrase is “heads or tails.” |
| Braden: “Heads of tails” is an english idiom that refers to the head and tail of some animal. The idea is that you are so confused that you can’t even figure out if what you are looking at is the head or the tail of the animal in question. |
| Barbara: In other words, you can’t distinguish between the head or the tail. |
| Braden: Could you break this down? |
| Barbara: heads or tails (slowly) |
| Braden: And one time fast? |
| Barbara: heads or tails (fast) |
| Braden: Perfect! What’s next? |
| Barbara: Our next phrase is “rhyme or reason.” |
| Braden: “Rhyme or Reason” refers to patterns and usually points to an inability to identify the logic behind a certain system or thing. This is an idiom that has some subliminal meaning because of alliteration (two “R”) and the intonation has a rhythm. |
| Barbara: “Rhyme or reason.” |
| Braden: Could you break this down? |
| Barbara: rhyme or reason (slowly) |
| Braden: And one time fast? |
| Barbara: rhyme or reason (fast) |
| Braden: Excellent! What’s next? |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Braden: Let’s take a look at the grammar point. |
| Braden: So, Barbara, what’s the focus of this lesson? |
| Barbara: The focus of this lesson is using parts of speech to predict stress |
| Braden: In the dialogue, we heard the phrase… |
| Barbara: You should frame your idea around a proposal that will boost sales or impress corporate in some way. |
| Braden: There are many words in English that follow no systematic rules for stressed and unstressed syllables. Beyond that, many of the other words have rules that are too complicated to be useful. |
| Barbara: You can sometimes determine where stress falls in a word on the basis of its part of speech. In other words, recognizing that a word is a noun or a verb can sometimes help you with syllable stress. |
| Braden: The following guidelines will help you predict stress in words. Remember that these are guidelines, not rules, and that they have exceptions. |
| Barbara: The First rule we’ll look at is about Compound nouns. it says – “Stress the first word in compound nouns more than the second word” |
| Braden: Good examples for this kind of stress are airport, deadline, classroom, software, and laptop. |
| Barbara: Notice how the stress is at the beginning. Dead-line, class-room. What’s our next rule? |
| Braden: The Second rule is about Two–noun compounds. It says that “Stress often falls on the first noun (or the main syllable of the first noun).” |
| Barbara: Two-noun compound are words like traffic jam and computer lab. Can you hear that the stress is in the first word? Two other examples would be air pollution and vacuum cleaner. What’s our third rule? |
| Braden: The Third rule is about verbs vs. nouns. It states, “Stress the first syllable in nouns and the second syllable in verbs.” |
| Barbara: So this one is a compare and contrast. My favorite examples are the words “conduct” and “conduct.” “Conduct” is a noun and has the stress on the first syllable. “Conduct” is a verb and has the stress on the second syllable. |
| Braden: Other similar examples are “present” and “present,” “convict” and “convict,” “produce” and “produce,” and “makeup” and “make up.” That last one is actually two words but the idea holds true. |
| Barbara: Now we’re going to discuss the -ate suffix. |
| Somewhere around 1000 English words have the -ate suffix. |
| Braden: These verbs are common in scientific, academic, and business contexts, and they have predictable stress patterns. |
| Barbara: So with this, we're going to give you examples, ask you to identify the rule yourselves. (we’ll give the rule at the end, if you were wondering.) |
| Braden: So our fist two words are exaggerate and innovate. Based on these two words we can say for sure that stressed syllable isn’t the -ate syllable. |
| Barbara: Our next example words are associate and integrate. These two words help us see that it isn’t the second to last syllable either. |
| Braden: Lastly, we have the words procrastinate and subordinate. Were you able to guess the rule? |
| Barbara: We don’t want to leave you in too much suspense so the rules is that you stress the second syllable before the suffix. |
| Braden: For example, the word “graduate” has three syllables “gra-du-ate” So according to the rule, the stress lands on the “gra” and we get “graduate.” |
Outro |
| Braden: That just about does it for today. Thanks for listening. |
| Barbara: See you later! |
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