Stress on the wrong syllables

A major benefit of focusing students on how words are stressed is the extra mental engagement with the word that it gives. A language learner needs to engage with a word many times, preferably in different ways, in order to really learn it. Many words change their meaning according to which syllable is stressed when the word is pronounced. Stressing one word in a sentence over the others can change the meaning of the entire sentence. The sentence then takes on a whole new focus or offers information that would not have been there otherwise.Words with more than one syllable are spoken with a stress on one of the syllables. This is important for correct pronunciation as well as for using the word correctly. For example:

Subject - is a topic of discussion (n) [sbdekt ] Subject - to cause someone to suffer (v) [sbdekt ]

It is important for those learning English as a foreign language to be aware of how a stress on the wrong syllable of a word can obscure its meaning. The word handle for instance is pronounced HAN-dle, and the word motel is pronounced mo-TELL. However someone new to the English language could easily switch these stresses, pronouncing them MO-tle and han-DELL. These words are not recognizable to the native English speaker and could easily cause misunderstanding in conversation.

An example of change in meaning due to word stress might be: Karen doesn't think GEORGE wants to go to college. The stress on George then becomes a clarification -- someone might want to go to college, but not George. Karen doesn't think George WANTS to go to college tells us that George has considered college, but doesnt like the idea. Karen doesn't think George wants to go to COLLEGE indicates that George may have plans, but not a plan to attend college.

Words ending in [-ce]

Malaysian student facing another major problem to read or pronounce words that ending with -ce. This is because, there have different types of intonation among each words and their meaning also will be different from each other words. For example: race space spice voice choice | res | | spes | | spas | | vs | | ts | They rowed in the boat race. Is there enough space in the car for me? Use some ginger to spice up the curry. I've a sore throat and I've lost my voice. There's a choice of four desserts.

Every words that end with ce will form s sound at the end of these words. Students should be more aware and more careful when read or pronounce words that end with ce.

Pronouncing the silent letters

English can be a tricky language sometimes. We might look at the word whistle and think, What happened to that T and that H? We dont pronounce them. They are silent letters. Nearly every letter in the alphabet can be silent. There are hundreds of rules to help figure out how to spell and read words, but they do not work all the time. Often it can be very confusing. Most times, we just have to memorize the tricky spellings. Silent letters show up because English has a lot of influences. About a third of the world uses English. It takes words and spellings from many different languages. For example here is a list of common letter combinations with silent letters. This list contains most of the silent letters that give English as a second language students difficulties.
Silent B B is not pronounced when following M at the end of a word.

climb crumb
Silent E

| klam | |krm |

E is not pronounced at the end of words and usually makes the vowel long.

hope drive
Silent K

|hp | |drav |

K is not pronounced when followed by N at the beginning of a word.

knife knee

|naf | |ni: |

Silent L L is often not pronounced before L, D, F, M, K.

calm half

|k:m | |h:f |

Sometimes silent letters are used to give us a clue how to pronounce things. If there is an E at the end of a word, it is often silent, but it usually lets us know a vowel that comes before it will have a long sound. This is why haze sounds likehays and not has. If students confused by all these silent letters, dont worry. Many grown-ups find them confusing too! The more we read and practice spelling, the better well be able to figure out how these silent letters work!