Learn about stress
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| Hi everyone. |
| Welcome to The Ultimate Hebrew Pronunciation Guide. |
| In this lesson, you'll learn about stress in Hebrew. |
| WHAT IS STRESS? |
| But what exactly *is* stress? |
| Stress, refers to the prominence or relative emphasis placed on certain syllables in a word. |
| When you say the word "unbelievable" for example, do you notice how the "lie" is accentuated? |
| That's because it's pronounced longer and louder than any other syllable in the word, and this is what we refer to as stress. |
| How is stress important? |
| Stress is essential for proper pronunciation and communication because it affects the meaning of a word or sentence. |
| Consider some examples in English. |
| If you were to say DEsert (noun) when you meant deSERT (verb), |
| or PROject (noun) when you meant proJECT (verb), |
| or how about PREsent (noun) when you *actually* meant preSENT (verb), |
| do you see how confusing it could be? |
| Let's compare that with Hebrew. |
| שבו (returned) |
| שבו (captured) |
| Clearly stress is just as important in Hebrew as it is in English. |
| Do you see now how important it is to stress the right syllable in Hebrew? |
| Hebrew stress rules |
| Now that we've *stressed* the importance of stress, let's take a look at some of the stress rules in Hebrew. |
| Hebrew is an old language. A *very* old language. And like many old languages, it's littered with many complex and contradictory rules; certain rules may be lost or simply forgotten throughout the ages, while others survive to the present day. As languages evolve, new rules take form, which can sometimes conflict with older ones. Because of this, the language can seem much more unordered and random. |
| Learning the exact rules about why stress is placed where it is in Hebrew, is a very long and complicated endeavour. For the purposes of learning modern day Hebrew however, all of these stress rules can be simplified down to two main principles: |
| - Stress falls on the very last syllable, and, |
| - Stress falls on the *second last* syllable |
| The first principle however, is much more prevalent than the second. |
| While some exceptions *do* exist, for all intents and purposes, these two simple principles cover more than 95% of all stress placement rules in Modern Hebrew. |
| Knowing which principle to follow and when, however, can't be determined without further intensive study of the language. The only surefire way way is to listen to a native speaker's pronunciation, or look up words in a stress marked dictionary. At least you can be sure that it's very likely the stress will be on the last syllable, and if not there, then on the second last syllable. |
| Let's practice! |
| Let's take a look at some words that are stressed on the last syllable. Try repeating after (host name) so that you can get a feel for the rhythm. |
| דבר "thing" |
| כבד "heavy" |
| לבן "white" |
| אביב "spring" |
| חשבונית "invoice" |
| Are you repeating the words aloud after (host name)? The only proper way for you to get a sense for the rhythm is to pronounce it yourself. Try it! |
| סבלנות "patience" |
| פסגה "summit" |
| בעיה "problem" |
| עגבניה "tomato" |
| שמלה "dress" |
| Now let's hear a few words that are stressed on the *second last* syllable. Remember to repeat after (host name). |
| נוח "comfortable" |
| חורף "winter" |
| צעצוע "toy" |
| צלחת "plate" |
| And the final example for this lesson is... |
| "female speaker" דוברת |
| In this lesson, you learned about stress in Hebrew |
| In the next lesson, we'll learn about two Hebrew diacritics. |
| Do you have any tips or tricks on how to tackle stress? Let us know in the comments. |
| See you in the next Ultimate Hebrew Pronunciation Guide lesson! |
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