Move the Stress, Not the Words

Italian is flexible with word order — you can rearrange a sentence to put the most important word first or last. English is much stricter about word order, so it uses pitch and stress movement to do that same highlighting job instead. Research comparing Italian and English speakers found lower-proficiency Italian learners often try to reorder English sentences the way they would in Italian, which can sound unnatural, while more advanced speakers shift toward using pitch and stress the American way. Try this: instead of reordering 'My brother bought the car, not my sister,' keep the word order fixed and push extra pitch and length onto 'brother' the first time and 'sister' the second time. Try it with 'I said Tuesday, not Thursday' too, stressing only the correction word. Recording yourself for two minutes and listening back helps you catch when you're still leaning on Italian-style reordering. This adjustment takes practice, but it clicks faster than you'd expect!