{"id":4555,"date":"2015-10-30T15:15:24","date_gmt":"2015-10-30T15:15:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/eurotalk.com\/blog\/?p=4555"},"modified":"2026-08-25T13:15:44","modified_gmt":"2026-08-25T12:15:44","slug":"taking-the-stress-test-how-emphasis-can-change-meaning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/en\/news\/taking-the-stress-test-how-emphasis-can-change-meaning","title":{"rendered":"Taking the Stress Test: how emphasis can change meaning"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>One of the hardest things to grasp when learning the English language is emphasis. Emphasising a different word in the same sentence, each time can completely change the meaning of it. Some people make the emphasis on a certain word very clear. This can give you the general feeling of the sentence.<\/p>\n<p>Other times it can be harder to pick up the meaning of a sentence and this can lead to you misinterpreting what the speaker means. Emphasis is normally used when someone wants to convey how he or she feels about something; this could be something they feel emotional about.<\/p>\n<p>For example my mum could say to me \u2018you\u2019re not doing that tomorrow\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>This could be her checking with me \u2018you\u2019re not doing that <strong>tomorrow?<\/strong>\u2019 implying that I am, or might be doing it on a different day. However, it is more likely that she is saying to me \u2018you are <strong>not<\/strong> doing that tomorrow!\u2019 \u2013 using this emphasis would make it clear to me that there is no chance I will be doing whatever I wanted to do tomorrow.<\/p>\n<h3>Emphasis is used by:<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Stretching out the vowel sound.<\/li>\n<li>Pausing after the word that is being emphasised is spoken.<\/li>\n<li>Speaking slower when saying the word they want to emphasise.<\/li>\n<li>The first syllable is pronounced louder than the other syllables.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Try emphasising a different word in this sentence each time you say it.<\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/eurotalk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/output_IiDQIK.gif\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-4556\" src=\"https:\/\/eurotalk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/output_IiDQIK.gif\" alt=\"output_IiDQIK\" width=\"1514\" height=\"692\" data-wp-pid=\"4556\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>\u2018She isn\u2019t flying to Hawaii tomorrow\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>By emphasising the \u2018she\u2019 it implies that it is someone else that is flying to Hawaii tomorrow.<\/li>\n<li>The \u2018isn\u2019t\u2019 shows that she\u2019s not doing this anymore.<\/li>\n<li>Emphasising the \u2018flying\u2019 means that she\u2019s not flying, she may be getting there another way instead.<\/li>\n<li>\u2018To\u2019 this could mean she is flying from or by Hawaii not to.<\/li>\n<li>Emphasis on Hawaii shows that it could be a different location, not Hawaii.<\/li>\n<li>Finally, \u2018tomorrow\u2019 could mean that it\u2019s actually a different day, not tomorrow.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Isn\u2019t it strange how one sentence can be used in so many different ways?<\/p>\n<p>Alex<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of the hardest things to grasp when learning the English language is emphasis. Emphasising a different word in the&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[150,3],"tags":[3985],"class_list":["post-4555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-learn-english","category-languagelearning","tag-general"],"acf":[],"lang":"en","translations":{"en":4555},"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":150,"label":"English"},{"value":3,"label":"Language Learning"}],"post_tag":[{"value":3985,"label":"General"}]},"featured_image_src_large":false,"author_info":{"display_name":"Richard Howeson","author_link":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/en\/news\/author\/richard"},"comment_info":24,"category_info":[{"term_id":150,"name":"English","slug":"learn-english","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":150,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":54,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":150,"category_count":54,"category_description":"","cat_name":"English","category_nicename":"learn-english","category_parent":0},{"term_id":3,"name":"Language Learning","slug":"languagelearning","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":3,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":254,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":3,"category_count":254,"category_description":"","cat_name":"Language Learning","category_nicename":"languagelearning","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":[{"term_id":3985,"name":"General","slug":"general","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":3985,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":135,"filter":"raw"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4555"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4555\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10437,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4555\/revisions\/10437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}