Live English Lesson | Intonation: Content Words

Hello. Hello, everyone. Welcome to today's live training. I hope you are well and safe and I hope that you are here with us. I'm Hadar. If you don't know me, if you're new to my channel or Facebook page or the influencing community, all the places where this live training is broadcast. So if you're joining right now, come in to say hi in the comments, let me know where you're from and if you'd like anything else that, if you have anything else that you'd like to share with us. All right, so today, like I said, we have a live training about intonation and specifically content words. It's a part of a. It's a two part live training series where today we're going to talk about content words and on Monday we will talk about function words. However, before we begin, I just want to send my love and support to everyone who is currently suffering or in this horrifying situation that we are in, in Europe, in Ukraine. So to all my Ukrainian students and followers and families, I just want to send love. We've been going through a really hard time with everything that's been going on. Our team member, we have team members from Ukraine and from Russia, so navigating through this and a lot of students from Ukraine and Russia. So this has been a very challenging time and we're trying to do our best to support our Ukrainian students and their families. And I truly, truly hope that this will end soon. Honestly, it is a little strange to talk about English and to talk about, you know, to move on with life when this is happening, when some of my team members are, are in this situation. And this is just, I, I feel like I can't start this training without talking about this. But we decided together that the smartest thing would be to still keep going with some of our training and some of our. Because we had a lot of plans for March and we do have an event coming up. We're gonna continue with it and we're gonna try to offer our support to whoever needs it and who is suffering from this, again, ridiculous situation. And I truly hope that it will end soon. So let's send our prayers that this war will end soon and safety will come back to Ukraine. All right, so let's talk about content words and let's talk about intonation. So if I were to ask you what intonation is, let me know in the chat. What is intonation? If you've watched some of my videos, then you probably know what intonation is. If you've done A little bit of English work. I'm sure you know what intonation is. You probably know it from your own native language. But let me know in the chat. What is intonation? And intonation could be a little. Sometimes when we think of intonation, we think of a bunch of different things. We might think about, you know, the melody. Some might think about the stress, some might. Some might think about the rhythm of the language. And I think all of that is relevant. All of that, like, it's all interconnected. Okay. Yeah. It's the rising and falling of stress. Great. Hi. Vanessa from Mexico. Stress, in a word. Great. My feeling, saying something. Rehab. Good. Yes. Intonation is. The pitch goes up and down. Good. Okay, so I love your answers. All of it is true. All of it is. Right. Like there is. It's like the up and down and it's stress. Like I said, we have a lot of moving pieces that go into this idea of intonation. I actually like to talk about it as prosody, because prosody is like the. The. The. The. The. It. It. It includes in it a lot more than just the melody. So it's the melody and the stress and the connected speech and basically everything that. It's not just the sounds that. That come out of our mouth and is all connected into one complete sentence. Right. So it's all these elements of speech that are not the sounds. Right. So it's the melody and the stress and how an utterance comes out of our mouth. And content words, which is today's topic, is a huge part of it. And to be able to deliver your message clearly, it's really important, really important that you understand this concept, especially content words. So in this training, you'll learn what intonation is. You'll learn what content words are, why we emphasize content words and not other words. And how can we know what words to. To emphasize, which is the question of all questions, because we all know that we need to stress words, but what words do we actually stress? So like I asked you a few minutes ago, let me. Let me introduce you to my definition, or not just my definition, but the common definition. Intonation is the melody of the language, the rising and falling of pitch while speaking. Pitch is like the tone of your voice. You can speak in high pitch or low pitch. Right. It really is very much like melody. Intonation distinguishes between types of sentences, whether it's a question or statement, and indicates the speaker's mood and attitude. So someone mentioned here, it's like my feelings when I speak. Right. Are you angry? Are you happy? Are you friendly? Are you rude? Are you upset? Are you tired? Are you sarcastic? All of this, this is called tone of voice. You can say the same thing and have like 18 different meanings to it. And it's all about how you use your voice and how you use your intonation. Right? And of course, it's also, you know, it depends on the context too. But this is why intonation is so incredibly important. Without intonation, it would be very, very hard to communicate. And also, this is another reason why when you talk about pronunciation, it's not enough to focus on. On the sounds. You really need to understand this aspect of speech, which is intonation. Now, when we talk about intonation, we want to talk about content words versus function words because they play a key role when it comes to intonation. You want to think about dividing the language. I'm going to go back to this. Dividing the language into two types of words. Right? Two types of groups. Content words and function words. Okay. Because it doesn't matter what word you choose from your vocabulary. It's either a content words or content word or a function word. Right? And content words have a different importance. All words are important, but content words behave a little differently in the mouth versus function words that behave a little differently in the mouth. Right? They behave a little differently, all depending on the context and context and what you're trying to say. Of course. But I'm generalizing now. Okay. For everything that I'm going to say about intonation, you could say, yes, but what if I want to talk? It's true, like, there's always, you know, context. Context, like, is like the. The bigger picture of what it is that you're saying plays a major role in intonation. So there isn't one definite truth in how we say things. Okay, so back to content words and function words. So we said we divide the language into two types of words, content and function. Today we're going to talk about content words and what are content words? Who knows what content words are? Let's see. Yes. Arnold is asking if we can elaborate about the difference. This is exactly what we're going to do. I'm going to talk more about content words today and give you a lot of examples. And on function, we're going to talk about function words on Monday. Okay, so what are content words? You can write it down in the chat. In the meantime, I'm continuing because you are hearing this. I'm getting your comments about 20 or 30 seconds later. Okay. The stressed words. Elena, my student. Very good. So, yes, we tend to stress stress content words, as you'll see, right? Content words are important words to stress in a sentence. That's true, but function words could be stressed too. So let's take it back a little bit, right? You're giving me the end result. Content words are stressed. But first, what are content words? How do we distinguish between them? Content words are words that have meaning on their own. When you think about a content words, you know what this word means. If you've come across it before, right? You can visualize it, you can think about it, you can see it, you can feel it sometimes. Okay, for example, if we look at these pairs, green on pig is should run, right? When we think of the first pair, green on. Which word is clear and bright in your head? Sorry, did not turn off my phone. Which word is clear and bright in your head? Right. Green or on what? What is easy for you to visualize? Obviously green, right? When you think of the word pig and the word is, you know what the word is means, but it's like it's meaningless without other words around it, right? And then should you know what it means, but the word run, okay, you immediately know it's. There's like a meaning. There's a definition of it in your head, which means that we clearly can tell if a word is a content word or a function word because we can identify it if we know it, right? So content words are nouns. Pig, prince, illness, verbs, run, grow, imagine adjectives. Green, fresh, weird, adverbs. Quietly, often, sometimes. Well, right. All of these are content words. So if you can categorize one of the words into one of those four categories, it's probably a content words. And like I said, if you know the word, it means something, it has a meaning. Now, here's the thing. Content words are usually stressed. More stressed than other words. Other words, like we said, are function words. So, for example, if we take the first phrase, this is great. This is great. And we'll talk about how to stress in a second. But the first phrase, this is great. We have three words. The word great is a little more important than the rest because this alone doesn't mean anything. Is okay, yeah, but this is is lead for me to get to the word great. And this is why great is a content word that is going to be stressed within that phrase. This is great. Now I'm going to talk about how to emphasize it in a second. Emphasize it in a second. But as I'm giving you the examples, I want you to think about what I'm Doing with my voice, right? And how. What I'm. How I'm saying it that makes it sound stressed. You can write it in the chat in the meantime, but I want you to think about it. He works at home. He works at home. He works at home. Ta da da da. Right? So works and home are the content words, and they are the words that are going to be stressed. Of course, not all content words are stressed the same. Keep that in mind. I'm waiting for you. I'm waiting for you. Waiting is the stressed word here. So while content words are usually stressed, function words are usually reduced. Right? So if we go back to the same slide. This is great. Great is stressed. This is. These are function words. They're not nouns, verbs, adjectives, or adverbs. This is reduced. This is. This is. This is. This is. And of course, I want you to try it with me. This is. This is. This is. This is great. This is great. This is great. So we'll talk more about it on Monday. And if you're not subscribed to my channel or my Facebook page, subscribe so you can get the notifications as to when I'm going to go live, but it's going to be on Monday at the same time. So this is reduce. This. This is. This is. These are reductions. This is why it's so hard sometimes to understand native speakers, because it feels like they're mumbling. They're not. They're just reducing content words. This is, this is. This is great. He works at home. He works at home. I'm waiting for you. I'm waiting for you. For you, for you, for you. So this is what happens. So the function words are reduced so that content words will be stressed. But we also stress content words. How do we emphasize words or why? The real question is why? First, why do we need to emphasize words? Right? Why can't we just say, this is great. He works at home. I'm waiting. I am waiting for you. Sounds robotic first. Okay, so maybe that's a good enough reason why we shouldn't stress it, but why else? I want you to let me know in the chat why you think that we need to stress words at all. What is it? What is it helping me with? Let's see. So how do. Why do we emphasize words? We emphasize words to, say, signal new or important information to the listener. Okay. Content words usually move the idea that we're delivering forward. So we want to signal new and important or important information to the listener. And because of that, we are using. We are stressing some of the words and also to make our speech more varied. Right. In the example of this is great. He works at home. I am waiting for you. Not only that, it's less interesting. People will have a hard time understanding what it is that you're trying to say, because our brain is not designed to decipher between what's more important and what's less important on its own. So that distinction is really important for you to deliver your message and also to signal, hey, this is something I want you to pay attention to. This is new and important information. Right. Elena says it helps your message reach the listener. Right. Give the most important information for the listener. Perfect. Communicate emotions. Right. Daisy says, Okay, so there are two elements we want to deliver the message. And the way we use our voice also affects how the listener perceives their feelings. How do we stress words? Okay, how to stress words? The way we stress words in English. And that's where it gets interesting, because different languages stress words differently. And I want you to ask yourself how to use stress words in your language compared to what I'm going to talk about, Right? So this is important, and I want you to write it in the chat. Take a moment and try to identify how you stress it in your language. Because in my language, when we stress words, it's. My first. Language is Hebrew. When we stress words, we just say things a little louder. However, in English, to stress words, we raise the pitch or change it. Right? Either go higher in pitch or lower in pitch. We prolong the word and we go a little louder. This is great. What do you want? I'm so hungry. I'm so hungry. I don't want to go. I don't want to go. See how long that is. Pitch change, loudness and length. In many languages, loudness is the default form or the default way in which people stress words. So I want you to ask yourself, is this the only way, or do you use pitch and length as well? A lot of languages don't use length. This is. This is why I want you to pay attention. Because being able to use length to emphasize words is such a great skill to have and a great way for you to improve your communication abilities. In English. Let's look at a few examples. The first sentence, don't get me started, right? So we said that to stress words. And let's say we want to stress the two content words here. Don't. And get to stress words. We want to make sure that we go louder, higher in pitch, and longer. Don't get me started. Don't get me started. Don't get me started. Don't get me started. Don't get me started. Your true friend. Friend is the noun true adjective. Your true friend. Yura, Yura. Yura. This is a reduction. We'll talk more about it on Monday. Your true friend. True friend. Ta. Ta. True is stressed. Friend is stressed. Friend is a little more stressed than true. You should know better. You should know better. You should. You should. You should reduce. No. Notice how I raise my pitch. Go louder and longer. You should know better. Listen to how it sounds when I don't do that. You should know better. You should know better. You should know better. You should know better. You should know better. Try it. You should know better. You see the difference now, of course, I could shift the stress to you. You should know better. Depending on the context, even though you is a pronoun, which is a function word, but sometimes you can stress a function word if it fits the context, which is what we're going to talk about in a second. How do you know what to stress? Okay, but right now we're talking about how to stress. Don't get me started. You're a true friend. You should know better. And this is what I was talking about when I shifted the stress from one word to another. Let's take one sentence in, and the first sentence would be where we stress the go. I want to go. Right? And not stay. This is what I would call a more neutral way of saying this sentence. I want to go. I want to go. And yes, I reduce the want to. To wanna. Wanna. I wanna go. I wanna go. Without distinguishing the length. I want to go. I want to go. By elongating all the words. I want to go. Right? Either way. Not only that, it doesn't sound neutral or natural. It's also harder to understand. Right? And this is why we want to make sure that we distinguish between what's more important and what's less important. We want to highlight what really matters, what will help the other person get your point. All right, I want to go. But you could also stress want, I want to go. Because you don't want to go. No, I want to go. Why are you saying that I don't want to go? If I move it from go to want, it changes the meaning of the situation. I want to go. When I say it like that, it means that someone is assuming that I don't want to go. I want to go. I want to go. I want to go, not you. So I want you to try it with me right now out loud, even if people are listening to you, don't worry about it. It's good for you. Let's try it together. Let's try stressing the word go. I want to go. Boom. Stress on. Go. Second, second option, second sentence. Let's stress the word want. I want to go. Gonna do this. I want to go. Right? Stress on the second word. I want to go. Raise the pitch. Now, the third option would be when we stress the word I. I want to go. I want to go. So again, let's stress go. I want to go. I want to go. Stressing, want, I want to go. Three different ways. Same sentence, three different meanings, right? Depending on the word that we chose to stress. So now you're probably asking yourself, yeah, hadar. Okay, great. But how to know what words to emphasize? So a lot of it has to do with just being a human being on this earth and knowing what you want to say and having the intuition to know what word matters, right? Because obviously, I want to go means that it's me versus someone else. And that happens in any language. It has nothing to do with English, Right? So the context is universal. Trust yourself in knowing what word matters. The thing that you want to practice is by. Is making sure that you're raising the pitch and that you're prolonging the word that you want to stress. So context. Context matters. But I can give you another tip, and this is important. So if you're doing something else, come back to me and listen to this. Because if there's one thing I want you to take from this, this is what I'm going to teach you. Okay? Look at this sentence. Read it out loud. I'm going to drink some water in the meantime. So let's take the first sentence. The content words in the first sentence are, dan bought new car. We have dan, noun, bought, verb, new adjective, car, noun. And then we have another phrase. And you know what? Before that, I have another slide that will make it simpler. When we speak, we break our message into smaller units. So we have this full message. But when we speak, we don't say, dan bought a new car. When I saw it, I decided to buy the same car. No, we break it into smaller units. So we want to think about it as a sentence that is comprised of four units. Dan bought a car. When I saw it, I decided to buy the same car. Usually. And pay attention to this. The last content word in the unit is stressed. Usually when you break it down into smaller units. The last content word in the. In a unit is Stressed. So. And it's exactly how I said it before. Dan bought a new car. Now, it doesn't mean that all the rest of the content words are not stressed. They're lifted a little bit. But car is the key word, right? It's the primary stress of this unit, of this thought group. Dan bought a new car. When I saw it. Last content word. Because it is a function word, it's reduced. When I saw it, I decided to buy. And I know it sounds like storytelling right now. I'm exaggerating a little bit for the practice. Okay. The same car. Now, I'm going to say it normally and pay attention to the stress words. Dan bought a new car. When I saw it, I decided to buy the same car. Dan bought a new car. When I saw it, I decided to buy a new car. And yes, I did play with the intonation a little bit. When I saw it rising, rising, versus when I saw it rising, falling. Both are fine. In both cases, the saw was a stressed word. Okay, so before we move on, let me see some of the comments Zebulon is saying is identifying the primary. The content words. Fantastic. But notice that we're not stressing all of them, because otherwise it would be something like, Dan bought a new car. When I saw it, I decided to buy the same car. That doesn't make any sense. I mean, it does. It does. It's just uncomfortable and full of effort, and it's going to be very hard for you to communicate that way. It's going to feel uncomfortable. You're going to feel like it's fake. So you want to make sure that you know that there is one word that is more dominant than the rest. And usually in a unit, that word is the last content word. Dan bought a new car. When I saw it, I decided to buy the same car. Now, like in the examples when that we gave before, I want to go. We need to remember that sometimes we'll stress a different word that serves the meaning better. Okay. For example, Dan bought a new car. Last content word. When I saw it. Last content word in the unit, I decided to buy. Last content word in the unit. A different car. It's not the last content word. Why? Because I want to put the focus on different new information. Right. So we can absolutely do it. But it has to have the right context. Dan bought a new car. When I saw it, I decided to buy a different car because I didn't want to have the same car as Dan. So the choice of words really depends on the context and what context I Don't know why this word is so hard for me to pronounce today. Context, context, context check. Just so you know, it's also hard for me to pronounce words sometimes. Context, context, and then I have to say it a few times. So when. It depends on the context, what words you choose to stress, and this is intuitive. This is universal. It has nothing to do with English generally. But usually, if we need to compare, you know, what are the words that we stress in the language, then content words are first function words are not reduced within content words. Usually the last content word of the phrase or the sentence is stressed the most out of all the content words there. And sometimes, depending on the situation, we'll choose to stress another word, not the last content word, because it serves the meaning better. Does that make sense? Let me know in the chat. Jacqueline is here. Hi, Jacqueline. We told Gina we would meet her at the party. Okay, first of all, write in the chat all the content words that you see here. And in the meantime, I'm going to continue, but you do. You do the. The exercise that I've just given you. Okay? Write in the chat all the content words in this sentence. Now, if we divide it into smaller units, we have the middle unit. We told Gina we would meet her at the party. We told Gina we would meet her at the party. So in this case, honestly, you can stress both Gina and told, Right? You could say, we told Gina we would meet her at the party, but you could also say, we told Gina we would meet her at the party. Right. If we want to emphasize the told, because maybe she said that she didn't show up. And then you want to say, we told Gina we would meet her at the party. So the choice of words really depends on what it. What message you're trying to deliver. But if there isn't a specific situation that you need to communicate, then just go with the last content word of the phrase, and then that would be, we told Gina we would meet her at the party. We told Gina we would meet her at the party. Okay, questions? Let's see. How can I make difference between content and content? Muhammad, are you asking how can you know the difference between content words and function words or content words between the different content words in a sentence? Good. Barack says hi. Barack Told. Told Gina. Meet party. Great. Told. Meet party. Yes. Gina is definitely con. A content word because it's a noun. A person's name is a noun, and it's always stressed. Right? It's new information. Almost always. Yeah. So Gina, for all of you. Who wrote it in the chat? Gina told Gina, meet, party. These are the content words. Let's go back just to show you told Gina, me, party. All the rest are function words. Okay. Okay. There is a good question here, because now we're in. In the Q and A part. What's the rule here? Why didn't we emphasize new instead of car like we did with the word? So there is. Here's the thing. I'm going to go back here. This is a really good question. Okay? Where's the rule here? Why didn't we emphasize new instead of car? The question is, Dan bought a new car. When I saw it, I decided to buy the same car. Why don't we stress new? So the general rule is that nouns are more stressed than adjectives, right? Like, this is a rule of thumb. Nouns are serving. No, adjectives are serving. The nouns are describing the nouns. This is where. This is why in the comparison between those two content words, nouns are a little more important. Because I could just easily have easily said, dan bought a car, right? I'm adding new to just describe it more specifically. But new still describes the car. And this is why car is going to be lifted up a bit more than new. But of course, if I want to emphasize that he bought a new car, maybe because he's usually buying used cars or someone's referring to his old car, and I'm like, no, Dan bought a new car. If I want to emphasize the new, because new is the important information here, I would stress it. But if I'm just describing a situation where he bought a new car, then I would probably stress the word, stress the noun. He's a great guy, right? I won't necessarily say he's a great guy. I would. If someone challenges it and says, you know, he's an awful guy, I'd be like, no, he's a great guy. That's when I change. That's when I stress the adjective. But generally speaking. And again, rule of thumb, and I think that rule of thumbs are really easy for us to. To have. It's good for us to have so that we at least have some sort of foundation and anchors because we can break and dismantle intonation. As much as, you know, like so much, it really depends on what. What it is that we're trying to say. So it's important. Important that we have some structure in our head when we're listening to English and when we're practicing English and, of course, when speaking English. And then we can break it. Okay, So I Hope that answers your question. More questions. We have five more minutes. Why did you emphasize by and not decided? Okay, so same question. Why did I emphasize buy and not decided? Let's try it. Dan bought a new car. When I saw it, I decided to buy the same car. It's not wrong. It's just less common to have that stress when you have this phrase. And honestly speaking, I would probably think of unit three and four as one unit. I decided to buy the same car and only stress the word car within that long unit. I broke it down for you. So it makes more sense because there is a little bit of emphasis on buy, following the rule of the last content word of the unit, right? So unless we have a really good reason to stress a word, then the general or the common rhythm and. And the common stress patterns of English is that the last content word of the phrase or the sentence is stressed. Right? So we don't always want to break it. We need to have a good reason. So I decided to buy the same car. It's a. It's just a little off. It's not wrong by any means, especially if you're still stressing content words versus function words. But the way it's usually said is that it's kind of like you. You want to think of it as like a skip. You know, when you skip and then you land on your foot and there is like a. A light thump, light skip and a thump. Ta da da, da, da, da. So I decided to buy the same car. Dan bought a new car. Right? Like, it's kind of like it's always on the latter sound. This is probably very obscure and vague for many of you. You're like, what is she talking about? If that resonated with you, great. If you did not understand what I'm trying to say, please forget about it. It's not that important. Okay? So that is the idea of rhythm, because that's usually how people stress it. Unless there is something important. I can also say I decided to buy the same car and not him. Right? But you need the context for us, like, for you to decide to stress a word that is different than the last content word. And this is why I'm saying, like, don't even practice it just yet. I recommend that you start. Let me just move that. I recommend that you start paying attention to how people speak, right? Just pay attention. Listen to English, to videos and podcasts and tv, and try to identify the words that are stress. And now you know how to identify it. It's longer, louder, higher, in pitch. Different in pitch, right? It lifts up, usually it's longer. And then you will notice that these are content words. And then also if you think about this idea that I taught you, last content word of the phrase or the sentence, it'll help you organize the speech as well. Okay, now next week on Monday we will talk about function words. So make sure that you subscribe or that you come back to either. My Instagram at. I'm at Hadar Accentsway, I announce all the lives there. So make sure you follow me there to know when we go live. We have about five live trainings coming up in the next few weeks and also we do have an exciting event coming up next week and that is the Fluency Boot camp. It's absolutely free. It's 14 days. We haven't opened registration just yet. We're opening registrations next week. So. So make sure that you stay tuned because it's going to be super exciting with daily training. I'm going to go live every single day for 20 minutes and teach you something extremely valuable to help you build powerful habit habits and also step into the right mindset and develop the ideal strategy for you to succeed in English. So it's a win win if you join because there's also going to be a lot of practice. And I will talk about intonation too probably. Okay. If you have any follow up questions, prepare them and come and ask me them on Monday when we talk about function words. Thank you all so, so much for being here. Thank you for participating. I loved reading your answers and I'm just reading some of the comments. I'm going to continue reading all your comments later. Thank you so much. Have a beautiful rest of the day. Be safe. Have a. And that's it. Peace and love everyone. Bye.