is about adding suffixes to words and we have two  words to talk about this. Our words are fertile  

and equal. So when we are talking about prefixes  and suffixes, we always have to think about the  

root word or the main word. So our main word here  is fertile and equal. So to pronounce these words  

we are going to stress syllable one in both of  these root words. So we have fer dull and e kwul.

So fertile and equal. Now  

most of the time when we add a prefix or a suffix  to a word the root word, stress does not change,  

and we see this when we add this ize suffix  and we have fer duh liz and e kwuh liz.

So we're still going to  have the stress on syllable  

one. There is a difference that you might  be seeing and hearing in these words  

and that is that we're going to use this  short uh sound in the middle of the word,  

that schwa sound. And the reason is, is  that as words get longer, the beats get  

shorter , and so we're oftentimes going to have  that short quick schwa sound in a longer word.  

So we have fertilize and equalize. So we have  fertile and fertilize; equal equalize. sS you can  

hear I'm stressing syllable one and making that  louder, longer, and higher in both of these cases.

Now we have some suffixes, some additions  to the end of words, that we call stress  

exception suffixes. They impose a new stress  rule and we see that when we add the i t  

y suffix. I have some other videos on this. I like  to teach it as ity is pronounced uh dee uh dee

So again we have that schwa here, that uh sound.  And then we have that long d with that long e  

vowel at the end. uh deeuh dee. When you see  i t y we are going to pronounce it as uh dee.  

Now what happens to the stress? You can see I  have it underlined. It's a little tell for you.  

We're going to shift the stress  to right before the uh dee  

ending. So it's going to be fer till adi  and equality. So fertility and equality.

So let's listen to all of these and I want  you to listen from top to bottom. It remains  

the same for the first two and then  shifts for the last two. So we have 

fertile fertilize fertility equal equalize equality

So again we have 

fertile fertilize fertility equal equalize equality

So again most of the time when we add a suffix  to a word, the root word or the main word  

stays the same in terms of  word and syllable stress.  

But we are going to shift that stress in some  cases and we see that with this i t y suffix  

which we pronounce as uh dee and we are going  to stress the syllable right before that ending.

So one more time all the way through. 

fertile fertilize fertility equal equalized equality

So give it a try I know people are going  to notice the difference. If you found  

this helpful please share us with your  friends. If you're looking for more help  

check out our products on google play  iTunes and our classes at Tarle speech.

Thank you everyone!