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What exactly is word stress in Spanish?

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15 messages over 2 pages: 1


jeff_lindqvist
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 Message 9 of 15
29 July 2012 at 2:23pm | IP Logged 
Maybe slightly higher pitch, but the important thing is simply to use stress, like in the PREsent vs. preSENT example above - unless you scream the stressed syllable in your English, I don't think it would feel natural for you to scream in Spanish.
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Josquin
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 Message 10 of 15
29 July 2012 at 6:12pm | IP Logged 
I think you're overthinking the whole concept. Just listen to some spoken Spanish and you will internalize stress, pitch, and prosody automatically.
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Bao
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 Message 11 of 15
29 July 2012 at 8:50pm | IP Logged 
quesuerte wrote:
So, just to clarify, the pitch on the last stressed syllable is higher than it would usually be? I need to exaggerate it slightly?

That's why I said to listen to Spanish. (If you have auditory problems, please excuse me for this remark.)

From a native English speaking point of view, that last syllable probably sounds monotonous, so I wouldn't advise you to exaggerate it. Train yourself to hear the way stress is realized in Spanish and to copy it.
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FELlX
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 Message 12 of 15
29 July 2012 at 10:57pm | IP Logged 
The stress is marked with a ' in the following words:

'Una bici'cleta
Disposi'ción
Compo'nente
'Célula
Ca'misa

Note that I'm not a Spanish speaker - I found these audios and transcribed them -, and that in my native language, words do not have stressed syllables at all, so this shouldn't be too difficult for you.

EDIT: corrected three, had forgotten to rectify the stress mark on the first word, and got the second and the third wrong, thanks tractor

Edited by FELlX on 29 July 2012 at 11:55pm

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tractor
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 Message 13 of 15
29 July 2012 at 11:51pm | IP Logged 
Felix, you've got a couple of them wrong. Should be: 'una, disposi'ción, compo'nente.
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mrwarper
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 Message 14 of 15
16 August 2012 at 7:52pm | IP Logged 
The 'present vs pre'sent thing nails it, that's all you should need to get stress right.

Bao wrote:
From a native English speaking point of view, that last syllable probably sounds monotonous...

a couple other things you may want to pay attention to:
-pitch does not usually change, except at the end of questions.
-Spanish is not stress-timed but syllable-timed, i.e. in English you seem to slow down and 'relish' on stressed syllables while you quickly go over the rest, so f.e. in 'an orange' and 'an orange ball' you pronounce 'orange' with different speeds. This does NOT happen in Spanish.

Michael Swan refers to this as "the 'bored' effect" when describing Spanish learners' English (Spanish speech patterns carried over to English)


Edited by mrwarper on 16 August 2012 at 7:53pm

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justonelanguage
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 Message 15 of 15
14 September 2012 at 4:33pm | IP Logged 
Wat? Here are the correct stresses for the words you gave:

"e" of "bicicleta"
"ó" of "disposición"
"nen" of "componente"
"é" of "célula"
"i" of "camisa"

I'm always amazed at how people don't just memorize a few, finite rules for grammar and pronunciation. It's so much easier just knowing a few rules and applying them to examples. If it ends in a "vowel, n, or s", stress is placed on penultimate syllable. If not, stressed is placed on last syllable. If there is an accent mark, the accent mark is where stressed is placed. Very simple, easy to remember.

'Una bici'cleta
Disposi'ción
Compo'nente
'Célula
Ca'misa

FELlX wrote:
The stress is marked with a ' in the following words:

'Una bici'cleta
Disposi'ción
Compo'nente
'Célula
Ca'misa

Note that I'm not a Spanish speaker - I found these audios and transcribed them -, and that in my native language, words do not have stressed syllables at all, so this shouldn't be too difficult for you.

EDIT: corrected three, had forgotten to rectify the stress mark on the first word, and got the second and the third wrong, thanks tractor



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