Tip – Importance of stress and intonation in speech

I read an interesting article on the web about why native speakers of English sound different.
Here it is –

English is considered a stressed language while many other languages are considered syllabic.

What does that mean?

It means that, in English, we give stress to certain words while other words are quickly spoken. In other languages, each syllable receives equal importance. English however, spends more time on specific stressed words while quickly gliding over the other, less important, words.

You need to understand which words are generally stressed and which ones are not.

Words that get the stress are the nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs.

Now, log in to some online sources, listen to how native speakers concentrate on the stressed words rather than giving importance to each syllable. You will soon find that you can understand more because you begin to listen for stressed words. All those words that you thought you didn’t understand are really not crucial for understanding the sense or making yourself understood.

Stressed words are the key to excellent pronunciation and understanding of English.