イギリス英会話ブログ

In negative sentences, intonation is very important.

For example, listen to me saying this sentence in three different ways:

• I didn’t write to Sue yesterday.

Here are the three sentences with the stressed words in bold:

1. I didn’t write to Sue yesterday - I phoned her.
2. I didn’t write to Sue yesterday - I wrote to Ann.
3. I didn’t write to Sue yesterday - I wrote this morning.

In speech, this is just one example of a time when your intonation and stress is very important in order to communicate your meaning clearly.

Another kind of ambiguity arises in negative sentences with ‘because’:

• I didn’t sing because Pam was there.

This sentence has two possible meanings :

1. パムさんがいたから、私は歌わなかった。
2. 私が歌ったのは、パムさんがいたからじゃないよ。

It is difficult, even with clear intonation, to make your meaning clear, but see if you can tell the difference between the 2 audio files.

To make the difference absolutely clear, you could re-order the sentence like this :

• Because Pam was there, I didn’t sing.
• パムさんがいたから、私は歌わなかった。

As I said, with ambiguous sentences, everything depends on your intonation. Consider this sentence :

• We can’t kill the students with our lessons.

Now, here are three audio files of me saying the sentence with different intonation. Can you match each audio file with the sentence that best continues it?

1. - but we can kill them with our hands.
2. - but we can make them suffer.
3. - but we can kill ourselves.

So, you should try to be conscious (aware) of how you are using stress and intonation when you speak English - because it can change the meaning of what you are saying.