Intonation Exercises:

Change Your Tone of Voice to Express Emotions in English

In order to improve your intonation when speaking English, you need to develop sensitivity to
the emotions and attitudes that native English speakers express through their tone of voice.
A deeper awareness of how we communicate meaning through intonation will help you
become more socially and emotionally intelligent in conversations with native English speakers.
Once you’re able to identify the different emotions and attitudes expressed through tone,
you’ll be able to start working on them in your own voice.
The challenge for many people is increasing the variety of tones that you express through your
pitch and inflection.
That’s what we’re going to practice today with these intonation exercises.

Understand the Pitch Variation in Your Own Voice

To get started with intonation, you need to have an awareness of the pitch variation in your
own voice.
After all, when we speak, we change our pitch consistently throughout our sentences.
If you’re completely new to pitch, please be sure to check out The Power of Pitch.
In that video, I give you a simple exercise that you can do in order to see what’s available to
you in your own voice.
To change your intonation, you need to be able to use your pitch consciously and
thoughtfully.

Depending on how pitch works in your native language, this can take some practice.

In this video on Pitch Exercises, we practice rising and falling intonation on a number of vowel
sounds as well as short words.
These common pitch glides are often used to confirm whether you’re asking a question or
making a statement.
Expressing More Emotions Through Your Tone of Voice

At this point, you may be comfortable with basic rising and falling tones, but in order to be more
expressive in English, you’ll need to master a wider variety of emotions through your tone of
voice.
If you’re not used to expressing a wide variety of emotions through your voice due to your
cultural background, your personality, or your native language, this can feel challenging at first.
That’s why we practice.

Remember, this is about understanding what emotions are coming across in your speech,
whether you intend them to or not.

if you want to sound more like a native English speaker, you need to be aware of what you’re
communicating through your intonation.
Just remember, it may feel awkward or uncomfortable when we’re practicing, but it’ll
definitely sound natural when you’re interacting with native speakers.
After all, that’s why we practice.

We’re trying to get more comfortable expressing these emotions through our voice on a regular
basis.
Let’s get started!

Intonation Exercises: Practice Different Tones with Common Words

In these intonation exercises, we’re going to look at extremely common words that you will use
all the time when speaking English.
We’ll start by saying a word neutrally, so that they’re clear and easy to understand without any
particular rising or falling tone.
Then we’ll practice these words with normal rising and falling intonation.
From there, we’ll increase the rise or the fall in order to express more intense emotions.
At the end, we’ll practice them all together so that you can hear the difference.
On the screen, I’ll give you a few more clues, such as punctuation, the emotion I’m expressing,
and whether your tone should be rising or falling.

Remember, as we move into more intense emotions, we tend to exaggerate the pitch rise or
the pitch fall.

You may choose to pause the video in order to repeat the exercises a few more times or come
back and rewatch the video in order to continue to practice.
Ready? Let’s go.

Intonation Exercise #1: Yeah

First, we’re going to start with the word “yeah.” (It’s a little more common in everyday speech
than the word “yes.”)

 Yeah (neutral)
 Yeah. (falling)
 Yeah? (rising)
 Yeah! (enthusiastic)
 Yeah!! (excited)
 Yeah!!! (super excited)
 Yeah?? (uncertain)
 Yeah??? (surprise)
 Yeah… (disinterested)
Please note that there are more emotions you can show here, like annoyance, doubt, disbelief,
or uncertainty.
These are just a few examples to get started.

Intonation Exercise #2: No

Next, let’s move on to “no.”

 No (neutral)
 No. (falling)
 No? (rising)
 No! (authoritative)
 No!! (forceful)
 No?? (uncertain)
 No?? (disbelief)
Ready to work on your intonation? Join me for a five-day intonation challenge. Find out more
and join here.

Intonation Exercise #3: Okay

Next, let’s move on to the word “okay.” As in many languages, we use this all the time.

Let’s practice different emotions you can show through your intonation on the word “okay.”

 Okay (neutral)
 Okay. (falling)
 Okay. (agreeing)
 Okay? (rising)
 Okay! (annoyed)
 Okay!! (irritated)
 Okay?? (uncertain)
 Okay??? (insecure)
As you’re probably noticing as I go through the examples, your facial expressions and body
language can also help you produce the right emotion.
Intonation Exercise #4: Right
Next, let’s move on to “right.”
 Right (neutral)
 Right. (falling)
 Right? (rising)
 Right! (authoritative)
 Right!! (aggressive)
  Right?? (uncertain)
 Right??? (insecure)
Intonation Exercise #5: Hey
Next, let’s move on to the word “hey,” another word we use all the time in everyday speech.
 Hey (neutral)
 Hey. (falling)
 Hey. (disinterested)
 Hey! (authoritative)
 Hey!! (aggressive)
 Hey? (rising)
 Hey! (enthusiastic)
 Hey!! (excited)
Intonation Exercise #6: Maybe
Moving on, let’s talk about the word “maybe.”
 Maybe (neutral)
 Maybe. (falling)
 Maybe. (unconvinced)
 Maybe? (rising)
 Maybe?? (uncertain)
 Maybe… (noncommittal)
Intonation Exercise #7: Please
Last but not least, let’s talk about the word “please.”
 Please (neutral)
 Please. (falling)
 Please! (authoritative)
 Please!! (forceful)
 Please? (rising)
 Please?? (pleading)
 Please??? (begging)

Word Stress
Word stress is your magic key to understanding spoken English.
Native speakers of English use word stress naturally. Word stress is
so natural for them that they don't even know they use it. Non-
native speakers who speak English to native speakers without
using word stress, encounter two problems:

1. They find it difficult to understand native speakers, especially

those speaking fast.
2. The native speakers may find it difficult to understand them.

In this lesson we look at the most important aspects of word stress,

followed by a short quiz to check your understanding:

Understanding Syllables
syllable (noun): a unit of pronunciation that has one vowel sound,
and may or may not be surrounded by consonants. A syllable can
form a whole word or part of a word. For example, there is one
syllable in cat, two syllables in monkey and three syllables
in elephant.

To understand word stress, it helps to understand syllables.

Every word is made from syllables.
Each word has one, two, three or more syllables.

word number of
syllables

dog dog 1

green green 1
 word number of
syllables

quite quite 1

quiet qui-et 2

orange or-ange 2

table ta-ble 2

expensive ex-pen-sive 3

interesting in-tres-ting 3 or
in-te-res-ting 4

unrealistic un-rea-lis-tic 4

unexceptio un-ex-cep-tio- 5
nal nal

Notice that (with a few rare exceptions) every syllable contains at

least one vowel (a, e, i, o or u) or vowel sound.
  Understanding Syllables for Word Stress
 What is Word Stress?
 Why is Word Stress Important?
 Where do I Put Word Stress?
 Word Stress Rules
 Word Stress Quiz

Sentence Stress
Sentence stress is the music of spoken English. Like word stress,
sentence stress can help you to understand spoken English, even
rapid spoken English.

Sentence stress is what gives English its rhythm or "beat". You

remember that word stress is accent on one syllable within
a word. Sentence stress is accent on certain words within
a sentence.

Most sentences have two basic types of word:

 content words
Content words are the keywords of a sentence. They are the
important words that carry the meaning or sense—the real
content.
 structure words
Structure words are not very important words. They are small,
simple words that make the sentence correct grammatically.
They give the sentence its correct form—its structure.
If you remove the structure words from a sentence, you will
probably still understand the sentence.

If you remove the content words from a sentence, you

will not understand the sentence. The sentence has no sense or
meaning.

Imagine that you receive this telegram message:

This sentence is not complete. It is not a "grammatically correct"

sentence. But you probably understand it. These 4 words
communicate very well. Somebody wants you to sell their car for
them because they have gone to France. We can add a few
words:

The new words do not really add any more information. But they
make the message more correct grammatically. We can add even
more words to make one complete, grammatically correct
sentence. But the information is basically the same:

In our sentence, the 4 keywords (sell, car, gone, France) are

accentuated or stressed.

Why is this important for pronunciation? It is important because it

adds "music" to the language. It is the rhythm of the English
language. It changes the speed at which we speak (and listen to)
the language. The time between each stressed word is the same.
In our sentence, there is 1 syllable between SELL and CAR and 3
syllables between CAR and GONE. But the time (t) between SELL
and CAR and between CAR and GONE is the same. We maintain a
constant beat on the stressed words. To do this, we say "my"
more slowly, and "because I've" more quickly. We change the
speed of the small structure words so that the rhythm of the key
content words stays the same.

I am a proFESsional phoTOgrapher whose MAIN INterest is to TAKE

SPEcial, BLACK and WHITE PHOtographs that exHIBit ABstract
MEANings in their photoGRAPHic STRUCture.

Sentence Stress Rules

The basic rules of sentence stress are:

1. content words are stressed

2. structure words are unstressed
3. the time between stressed words is always the same

The following tables can help you decide which words are content
words and which words are structure words:

Content words - stressed

words carrying the example
meaning

main verbs SELL, GIVE, EMPLOY

nouns CAR, MUSIC, MARY

adjectives RED, BIG,

INTERESTING

adverbs QUICKLY, WHY,

NEVER

negative auxiliaries DON'T, AREN'T,

CAN'T

Structure words - unstressed

words for correct example
grammar

pronouns he, we, they

prepositions on, at, into

 words for correct example
grammar

articles a, an, the

conjunctions and, but, because

auxiliary verbs do, be, have, can,

must

Exceptions
The rules above are for what is called "neutral" or normal stress.
But sometimes we can stress a word that would normally be only a
structure word, for example to correct information. Look at the
following dialogue:

"They've been to Mongolia, haven't they?"

"No, THEY haven't, but WE have."

Note also that when "be" is used as a main verb, it is usually

unstressed—even though as a main verb it is also a content word.