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How do I know that syllable is stressed?
How do I know how a syllable is in a word?
Thank you!
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You can't know, unless you check in a dictionary. How should we pronounce "bury"? Simple! No, it's not. It's berry. However, some words that ends with sounds like "shun", "ik" etc., or other words modified by some particles have a pretty fixed stress pattern, and sometimes you can just try to guess. But my advice is to always look up every word you feel you are somehow going to use pretty often, or you'll end up mispronouncing everything.
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<<How do I know that syllable is stressed?>>
For native English words and old borrowings, usually it's the first non-prefix syllable. For Latin and other more recent borrowings, check a dictionary.
<<How do I know how a syllable is in a word?>>
Sorry, I don't understand the question. Could you rephrase it?
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Personally I would recommend listening to a lot of English (native speaker) speech if at all possible rather than looking things up too much... I can tell you as a native speaker that if you asked me how a word was stressed, even one I use all the time, like "understand" or "dictionary" I wouldn't be able to tell you.
Listening a lot is all I'm doing to get Japanese intonation right (besides the occasional native speaker correction) and I've been told I'm improving.
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Welcome to the wonderful world of English! It is not like French, where the last syllable is always stressed. You just have to learn where and when to place the stress. Sorry I couldn't give you a more cheerful answer!
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