In this Influency podcast episode, pronunciation expert and fluency coach Hadar Shemesh leads a interactive quiz on primary word stress for non‑native English speakers. She begins by defining primary stress—its acoustic cues and role in intelligibility—then presents a series of commonly mis‑stressed words. Listeners are prompted to guess the stressed syllable before Hadar reveals the correct pattern and models the pronunciation. The episode covers a range of examples (e.g., interesting, secretary, develop, comfortable, vegetable, photography, necessary, celebrate, chocolate, restaurant, military, frustrating, address) and highlights systematic rules such as noun‑verb stress shifts and regional US/UK variations. Hadar repeatedly encourages practice, invites listeners to comment on their performance, and promotes her website (hadarshamish.com) and social‑media channels for additional free resources and PDFs. The tone is instructional and supportive, aiming to boost learners’ confidence and clarity in spoken English.
Chapters
Comfortable. Comfortable.
Primary stress is on the first syllable. It's not comfortable, not comfortable. I've heard both many times.
Comfortable. Comfortable. Comfortable.
Hey, you're listening to the Influency podcast. I'm Hadar, your host, a pronunciation expert, fluency coach and a proud non native speaker. With over 16 years of experience teaching. I am here to share with you all my secrets on how to show up in English clearly with confidence and freedom. On this podcast, I'll provide step by step strategies, lessons, stories and practical tips to keep you inspired and motivated on your English journey.
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Vegetable Photography. Comfortable. Chocolate. How well do you know where to place the primary stress in a word? In this video, I'm going to share with you some of the most confusing words in English words that my students usually get wrong or it comes to primary stress and we'll see if you can guess where the primary stress is. Primary stress is the one syllable in a word. The one unit in a word that is stressed the most. It is usually longer, louder, higher in pitch. For example, interesting. The in is the primary stress in the word understand. The primary source is at the and understand in the word ability. Where's the primary stress ability? So what I want to do is to show you a word. You will guess the primary stress and then I'm going to reveal the answer and we'll just practice it together. But before we get started, if you're new to my channel then hi, my name is Hadar. I'm a non native speaker of English and I am here to help you speak English with clarity, with confidence and with freedom. Check out my website for a lot of free resources and PDFs and lessons. Hadar shemish.com and you can also follow me on social media where I share daily lessons that can help you speak English with clarity, confidence and freedom. Okay, are you ready? Let's get started. The first word is where is the primary stress? Interesting. It's not interesting. It's interesting. The primary stress, if you got it right, well done. If not, practice the correct form with me. Interesting. You can also say interesting or interesting. Both are correct. The primary stress is still the same. Interesting. This is my favorite pronunciation. Now what about this? Secretary. Secretary. Not secretary. Secretary. First syllable. Next one. Develop. Develop. Second syllable. Ve. Develop. Very good. Not develop. Vegetable. Primary stress is on the first syllable. Not vegetable. Vegetable. What about this one?
Comfortable. Comfortable.
Primary stress is on the first syllable. It's not comfortable, not comfortable. I've heard both many times.
Comfortable. Comfortable, Comfortable.
Primary stress on the first syllable. What about this? Photography. Primary stress is on the second syllable. Longer, louder, higher. In pitch versus photography, you say photo, but photography. You don't say photography. Photography. Next. Necessary. Necessary, not necessary, necessary. You would, however, say necessarily, necessarily, not necessarily, but it's not necessary, necessary. What about this? Celebrate. First syllable. Celebrate. Not celebrate, or celebrate. Celebrate. Primary stress. And this? Chocolate. Chocolate. Not chocolate. Chocolate. Chocolate. Primary stress is on the first syllable yet again. What about this? Restaurant. Restaurant. Not restaurant. Restaurant. Now, what about this? Military. Military. Not military. Military. And what about this one? Well, this one is a tricky one because in the US it is likely to be pronounced as frustrating. Stress is on the first syllable. Frustrating. That's how I say it. It's so frustrating in the UK you'll hear frustrating, frustrating. So both options are correct, but depending on where you live, you might want to choose one over the other. And then what about this? Well, this one is tricky too, because it can be address and address. When you have the same word that is both a noun and a verb, like address, address, present, convict, convict, then the only thing that changes it from a noun to a verb is where you place the stress. Same thing here. Address versus address. So, for example, address is the place where you live. Your address, what is your address? And address is to address someone. Okay, it's now I'm going to address you. Where I'm going to address the problem. However, one little caveat is that in the US the noun address can also be pronounced as address. What's your address? So address and address can both be a noun. The verb is only to address. You can't say, I'm going to address the issue. No, I'm going to address the issue. But you can say, what is your home address? Or what is your home address? Okay, you learn something. But with present and present, or. Or record and record, it's pretty straightforward. For nouns, the primary stress is on the first syllable, and for verbs, the primary stress is on the second syllable. All right, that's it. Now, let me know how you did in the comments below, and I'm going to add a few additional videos to help you learn about the primary stress and practice it effectively. In the meantime, have a beautiful day and I'll see you next week in the next video.
