Stress Is Loud, Long, AND High

Research comparing native English speakers to Bengali speakers found a specific difference in how stress is built: Bengali speakers tend to rely mainly on making stressed syllables longer and louder, while native English speakers stack pitch and vowel-quality changes on top of that, creating a bigger, more layered contrast between stressed and unstressed syllables. Without that extra pitch jump, English can sound flatter or less clearly stressed to American ears, even when timing is otherwise good. Try this: take 'photograph', 'important', and 'wonderful', and say them focusing on adding a noticeable pitch rise on the stressed syllable, in addition to the length and loudness you're probably already using. Also let the unstressed vowels shrink down and go quiet, rather than keeping their full quality. Say a full sentence like 'That's a wonderful photograph' exaggerating both pieces together. This layered approach — loud, long, AND high — builds much more natural-sounding English stress. You're building a strong foundation here!