标准美语发音的13个秘诀 CD 2 Track 1

（单词翻译）

 

Exercise 1-33; Nationality Intonation¹ Quiz  CD 2 Track 1 

Pause the CD and stress one word in each of the following examples. Repeat after me.  

1.   an American guy 

2.     an American restaurant 

3.   American food  

4.   an American teacher  

5.   an English teacher  

When you first look at it, the stress shifts may seem arbitrary, but let's examine the logic² behind these five examples and use it to go on to other, similar cases.  

1.  an Américan guy 

The operative word is American; guy could even be left out withou t changing the meaning of the phrase. Compare /  saw two  American guys yesterday,  with /  saw two  Americans  yesterday. Words like guy, man, kid, lady, people are de facto pronouns in an anthropocentric language. A strong noun, on the other ha nd, would be stressed— They flew an American  flag .  This is why you have the pattern change in Exercise 1-22: 4e, Jim  killed  a man; but 4b, He killed a snake.  

2.  an American restaurant 

Don't be sidetracked by an ordinary descriptive phrase that ha ppens to have a nationality in it. You are describing the restaurant, We went to a good restaurant  yesterday or We went to an American restaurant  yesterday. You would use the same  pattern where the na tionality is more or less incidental in /  had French toast for breakfast. French fry,  on the other hand, has become a set phrase. 

3.  Américan food 

Food  is a weak word.  I   never ate  American food when I lived in Japan. Let's have  Chinesefood for dinner.  

4.  an American teacher 

This is a description, so the stress is on  teacher. 

5.  an Énglish teacher 

This is a set phrase. The stress is on the subject being taught, not  the nationality of the teacher: a French teacher, a Spanish  teacher, a history teacher.