Language Point for the Day. Stress.

    Stress.

What I actually mean is 'sentence stress'. For most learners of English who speak a European language this will be quite simple but for languages which are not stressed-timed it can be quite difficult. 

If you are from China, Japan, Korea, Thailand or a south-east Asian country then sometimes your English can sound a little 'flat' unless you get the sentence stress right.

In a sentence like the one below the following words in red are stressed:

If you can call me later, I'll give you the information.

In this sentence the words which carry the main information (content words) are stressed. The stressed/unstressed words are usually.

Stressed.	Unstressed.
Nouns (usually Subjects and objects).	Auxiliaries and modals.
Verbs.	Pronouns.
Negative auxiliaries and modals.	Articles.
Prepositions at the end of a sentence.	Verb ‘to be’.
Adverbs.	Linking words- and, but etc.
Adjectives.

You may stress normally unstressed words when you want to convey a different message. For example the normal sentence stress:

I like cricket.

Could be:

I like cricket.

When change the intonation when we want to emphasis that it is just me who likes cricket.

Sentence stress makes your English easier to understand and helps you to sound more natural. 

Rather than try to remember which words are stressed and which are unstressed, it is a good idea to listen to the sound of English and try to mimic it.