Know Your Parts of Speech to Know Where to Place Stress

When it comes to stressing syllables and knowing which one gets stressed, knowing the part of speech it is will help you tremendously.  For example, verbs that are two syllables long have strong stress on second syllable, pro JECT (vs. nouns/adjectives which have the syllable stress on the first syllable: PROject).  See Heteronyms Pairs podcast.

Now let’s combine the previous rule of closed syllables attracting stress with various verbs.  Look at the following words.  Note that the closed syllables are the stressed syllables in these verbs. 

Ac QUAINT, AcQUIRE, Ac QUIT

Would you like more practice with this skill? Join our online Stressing Out membership class and learn about this in more detail so that you become an expert at correctly stressing words!