/lit/ - Literature

I will dump my Hughe Orson Wells folder until I'm satisfied.

Do you mean from text? You sort of can't, a lot of the time. Whether or not a syllable is stressed or not is wholly reliant on how you say it.

Do you mean when someone is speaking?

>how to tell Stressed and unstressed syllabes apart.

The Ode Less Travelled - Stephen Fry

Grammar stuff? Shit, just get the Oxford grammar books, you aren't ever going to open them anyway.

>>2942774
Yes; speaking, to read poetry aloud.

>>2942807
>you aren't ever going to open them anyway.
Pic related.

I'm not an English native, but it's like this in every language (apart from tone languages like japanese, chinese whatever, dunno):
Each sentence/phrase has one ore more default accents. The stressing of other syllables can depend on the syntax, so you could actually learn this part of prosodic phonology from books.
BUT the intended meaning is a huge part of stressing/destressing, such as placing a focus on particular elements. In my opinion, you can learn the mechanisms and relationships between pragmatics/syntax/phonology from a book, but you're much better off if you make an account at a language exchange website like interpals.

>>2942837
Sure, whatever. Maybe once, just to prove you didn't waste your money. Maybe once again just to check some punctuation or something. Then you quickly realize you can just google that shit quicker than you can get your ass out of the chair and over to the bookcase.

Unless you need books for something academic or obscure like generative grammar or something, I don't think there's any point in getting those massive Oxford dictionaries. But since you're asking I'd still recommend the Oxford Modern English Grammar, but then also tell you to supplement it with something light, like those style-guides by Marion Field, which kinda make learning grammar a bit of fun. Then scrap getting the massive dictionary and just start using Onelook.com instead.

If you want to learn to read poetry I still recommend The Ode Less Travelled though.

Can we get a pdf of The Ode Less Travelled by Stephen Fry?

>>2942626
for more than 90% of nouns and adjectives in English which have more than one syllable, the accent is on the first syllable.
more than 60% of verbs have it on the second syllable.

that's why "prefer" is accented on the second syllable, but "preferable" is accented on the second syllable, except by troglodytes who need to die who accent it on the second.

>>2943713

>>2943996
>>2943713
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5LkDNu8bVU

>>2944032

>>2944574