Hi everyone and welcome back to Seattle Learning Academy's American English pronunciation podcast.

My name is Mandy and this is our 31st episode. Last week I began talking about syllable stress.

Hopefully you have already heard that show because I think it'll make today's show easier to understand.

Last week I talked about the two-syllable word stress rule. Do you remember it?

It goes like this. Two-syllable nouns, adjectives, and

adverbs are stressed on the first syllable. So this would include words like table,

quiet, and often. Two-syllable verbs are usually stressed on the second syllable, so this would include words like

predict, suspend, and remove. Some words, called heteronyms, can have two different pronunciations, but only one spelling. Two-syllable

heteronyms often use a change in the stressed syllable to show a change in the usage of the word.

For example, the word C-O-N-T-E-S-T.

A contest, noun, is a competition, but to contest, verb, means to oppose something.

Wilma won the contest, but her opponents intend to contest the results.

English has a lot of heteronyms, and we'll talk about more of them in the coming weeks.

The other aspect of syllable stress that I talked about last week was that suffixes play a large part in deciding which syllable to stress.

I told you that words that contain the T-I-O-N-S-I-N suffix are usually stressed on the syllable

before the T-I-O-N or S-I-O-N.

By knowing this rule, we know where to stress the words,

creation, intuition, and reputation.

I also told you that we can add the AL and A-L-L-Y suffixes to the T-I-O-N-S-I-O-N suffix, and the stress will remain before the T-I-O-N or S-I-O-N.

Now we will also know where to stress words like oppositional, situational, and nutritionally.

If you could understand all that,

you'll have no problem with the new topic for today,

...