Intonation in English English Pronunciation Lesson
Hi, I’m Kae.
Welcome to Oxford Online English!
In this lesson, you can learn about intonation
in English.
How important is intonation?
Let’s see.
Look at a sentence:
Do you need some help?
It’s a simple question, but by changing
the intonation, you can change the meaning
completely.
For example, it can be a simple question,
where you’re really offering to help:
Do you need some help?
It can be a rhetorical question, where you
don’t really think the person needs help,
but you want to be polite:
Do you need some help?
It can show that you’re annoyed with the
person you’re talking to:
Do you need some help?
It can be sarcastic:
Do you need some help?
It can show surprise that the other person
might need your help:
Do you need some help?
There are other possibilities, too!
You can see that intonation is a very powerful
tool.
Controlling your intonation is important for
communication in spoken English.
So, let’s start at the very beginning: what
actually is intonation?
There are seven possible intonation patterns
in English:
rising
falling
rising-falling
falling-rising
flat
high
low
The most important are the first four: rising,
falling, and combinations of rising and falling
tones.
Flat tones, including high and low tones,
aren’t common and don’t have many uses,
so we won’t talk about them today.
However, rising and falling tones can each
have many different meanings.
Keep this in mind: one intonation pattern
does not mean one thing.
The same intonation can have different meanings
in different situations.
Also, intonation is flexible.
There are rules, but the rules are not one
hundred per cent fixed.
Different people speak in different styles.
Let’s practice!
Here’s a word:
Let’s try saying the word with different
intonation patterns.
Repeat after me.
Rising: where?
Falling: where?
Rising-falling: where?
Falling-rising: where?
Let’s try one more time, with two words:
How many?
Rising: how many
Falling: how many?
Rising-falling: how many?
Falling-rising: how many?
If you can pronounce these four intonation
patterns, you can already do most of what
you need in English.
So, how do you use these intonation patterns?
The most basic rule is that you use a falling
tone to show the end of a sentence.
For example:
I live in Madrid.
She’s a lawyer.
We might be a bit late.
You can use a rising tone to show that your
sentence isn’t finished yet.
For example:
I live in Madrid, but I was born in Canada.
She’s a lawyer, although she isn’t working
at the moment.
We might be a bit late, because I don’t
finish work until seven.
That’s the most basic rule, and it’s important.
If you don’t use rising or falling tones
in the right places, people won’t understand
whether you’ve finished speaking or not.
However, there are many other ways to use
these intonation patterns.
Let’s look at another.
Did you get some bread?
I thought you were going to get the bread!
How are we going to make sandwiches if we
don’t have any bread?
We can go to the bakery and buy some sandwiches
there.
But, I think the bakery is closed on Saturdays.
It’s not Saturday today; it’s Sunday!
Oh…
Can you work out what was going on in that
dialogue?
After the first question: did you get some
bread, you heard five sentences.
Listen again if you need to; can you hear
the intonation?
Before, you heard that you use falling intonation
at the end of your sentence, but here, the
pattern is often the opposite:
I thought you were going to get the bread!
Do you know why this is?
This is our second rule about intonation:
you use a falling tone to show that information
is new, and you use a rising tone for old
information.
In this sentence, the bread has already been
mentioned, so it’s ‘old’ information,
and you pronounce it with a rising tone.
However, the word you gets a falling tone,
because this is the new idea in the sentence.
Let’s look at the next example:
How are we going to make sandwiches if we
don’t’ have any bread?
Here, the idea is the same.
The bread is ‘old’ information, so you
pronounce it with a rising tone.
The sandwiches are new information; this is
the first time anyone has talked about sandwiches.
New information gets a falling tone.
In the next sentence, which word is ‘old’
information, and which word is ‘new’ information?
Sandwiches are ‘old’ information, because
we already mentioned them.
So, pronounce sandwiches with a rising tone.
The bakery is ‘new’ information, because
this is the first time anyone has mentioned
it.
So, bakery has a falling tone.
In the last two sentences, the pattern is
reversed, but the idea is the same:
But, I think the bakery is closed on Saturdays.
It’s not Saturday today; it’s Sunday!
In the first sentence, the bakery is now ‘old’
information, so it gets a rising tone.
The ‘new’ information, with a falling
tone, comes at the end of the sentence.
You can see the same pattern in the second
sentence: the ‘old’ information—Saturday—comes
first, and the ‘new’ information—Sunday—is
at the end of the sentence.
If you want more practice with this, go back
to the dialogue.
Pause after each sentence, and repeat, trying
to copy the intonation.
Pay attention to the way intonation changes
on the same word as it changes from new to
old information.
Now let’s look at a very important use
of intonation: questions.
Where did you go for your vacation?
I went to Dubrovnik.
Is that in Croatia?
Yes, on the coast.
Have you ever been?
No, never.
Did you have a good time?
Very nice, though it’s quite touristy.
You got back yesterday, right?
Yeah, late in the evening.
Are you feeling tired?
No, not too bad, actually!
In the dialogue, you heard six questions.
Three of them had rising tones, and three
had falling tones.
Do you know why the intonation is different
in different questions?
Sometimes, when you’re asking a question,
you have no idea of the answer.
You’re asking a question to find out new
information.
In this case, the question has a falling tone:
Where did you go for your vacation?
Have you ever been?
Did you have a good time?
Sometimes, when you ask a question, you already
have some idea of the answer.
You’re asking a question to check something,
or to confirm that your idea is right.
In this case, the question has a rising tone:
Is that in Croatia? –> I think Dubrovnik
is in Croatia, but I’m asking to make sure.
You got back yesterday, right? –> I had
an idea that you got back yesterday, and I’m
confirming this with you.
Are you feeling tired? –> You told me you
got back late in the evening, so I guess you’re
tired.
This means that the intonation of a question
can change depending on the situation.
If you use a falling tone, this becomes a question
to find new information.
This means you really have no idea whether
Dubrovnik is in Croatia or not, and you want
to know.
You can ask:
Where did you go for your vacation?
If you ask this with a rising tone, it could
suggest that you knew the answer before, and
you just want a reminder.
You’re checking something you already knew;
you’re not asking for completely new information.
Using this intonation will help you to sound
more natural, but it doesn’t change the
meaning of the question.
However, there are many other intonation patterns
in questions which do have different meanings.
Let’s look!
What a fantastic film! Wasn’t it great?
Are you insane? It was the worst movie I’ve
seen all year.
Why would you say that? It was amazing!
Forget it.
It’s two hours of my life I’m never getting
back.
Why don’t we get something to eat? Your
pick.
How about we just go home? I’m pretty
tired.
Again, you heard many questions in the dialogue.
Can you see what was different this time?
Before we tell you, think about a question.
What does a question do?
Most likely, you thought: “a question asks
for information.”
That’s sometimes true, but actually you
can use questions to communicate many other
ideas.
In these cases, a question might not need
an answer.
For example, you can use questions to make
a comment about something: Wasn’t it great?
You can use questions to criticise someone
or disagree with them: Are you insane?
You can use questions to make suggestions:
Why don’t we get something to eat?
Can you remember the intonation in these questions?
To make a comment about something, use a falling
tone:
Why would you say that?
Doesn’t he look smart?
Isn’t it delicious?
To criticise someone, use a rising tone:
Have you lost your mind?
Why would you do that?
Are you really that stupid?
To make a suggestion, use a falling tone:
How about we just go home?
Why don’t you call and ask what’s happening?
Remember that intonation is flexible, and
that’s especially true here.
You can also make a suggestion with a rising
tone:
How about we just go home?
Can you hear the difference?
How do you think it changes the meaning?
The suggestion with a rising tone sounds more
like a real question, because it sounds more
indirect and hesitant.
The suggestion with a falling tone doesn’t
sound so much like a question; it sounds more
confident and direct.
This brings us to our last point: you can
use intonation to express many different emotions.
There’s one intonation pattern we haven’t
talked about yet: rising-falling intonation.
You can use this to express different feelings:
positive or negative.
Look at one word:
You can use a rising-falling tone to sound
excited: really?
You can use it—slightly differently—to
sound annoyed: really?
You can use it to sound surprised: really?
Can you hear the difference between these
three?
Listen once more:
Really?
Really?
Really?
You use a rising-falling tone each time, but
in a slightly different way.
To sound excited or surprised, you start and
finish higher, but to sound annoyed, the tones
are lower: really?
really?
To sound surprised, you often make the rising
tone longer: really?
You can also use other tones to express some
emotions.
For example, you can use a rising tone to
express doubt: really?
You can use a falling tone to sound sarcastic:
really?
Let’s practice!
You’ll hear the same question with five
different kinds of intonation.
Which emotion am I expressing?
Did you?
Did you?
Did you?
Did you?
Did you?
Okay, we hope you learned something useful
about English intonation.
We have a question for you: is intonation
in your language similar to English, or not?
Let us know in the comments, because we’re
curious!
Remember that you can find more free English
lessons on our website: Oxford Online English
dot com.
Thanks for watching!
See you next time!