English Intonation - It's not what you say, it's the way that you say it.

Intonation is the music of the voice

Intonation is the music of the voice. It tells us much more about the feelings and intentions of the speaker than the words they choose. Intonation can make a boring story sound interesting and an interesting story sound boring. Intonation communicates whether the speaker is polite, rude, impatient, angry, happy, sad, interested, sarcastic, bored etc.

Which of these statements below is more captivating to listen to?

‘I didn’t like that film, I was bored to death’

‘What a great film, just superb!’

Intonation can be falling, rising or flat

Very generally speaking, the falling tones tend to imply ‘assertiveness, certainty, finality’ etc.

“Sorry I’m late” (falling tone)

…whereas the rising tones signify ‘uncertainty, surprise, contradiction, non-finality’ etc.

“Sorry I’m late” (rising tone)

Lastly, the flat mid-level tone usually means the speaker is disinterested.

“Sorry I’m late” (mid-level tone)

But it’s not quite that simple. Intonation is a kaleidoscope world

When it comes to intonation, no one ever says exactly the same thing in the same way twice. A phrase usually contains on average about four to five words, though could potentially contain anything between one to seven / eight words. But there can only be one ‘tonic syllable’ in each phrase, and it could be any one of 7 possible types. Each tonic syllable (or ‘nucleus’) has a musical glide expressing specific emotions and nuances. Also there are specific ‘pre-tonic’ and ‘post-tonic’ patterns that could fall into place around the tonic syllable. ‘Pre-tonic’ patterns are called ‘heads’ which contain any ‘run-up words / syllables‘ before the tonic syllable, and ‘post-tonic’ patters are called ‘tails’, which contain any words / syllables after the tonic syllable, and these ‘tailing off’ words could be low-level, rising or flat (depending on the type of tonic syllable they follow). Both heads and tails can also contain one or more stressed syllables. For example, the high-fall tone could either have a ‘rising head’ or a ‘high head’, and is always followed by a ‘low-level tail’.

“What a great film it was” (High-fall tone with rising head and low-level tail)

“What a great film it was” (High-fall tone with high head and low-level tail)

Furthermore, the various voice pitches and degrees of vocal tension that can be used in the spoken word and phrase are endless and infinite.

Listen to the word ‘Why’ spoken in each of the 7 tonic syllable types.

High-Fall (HF) ‘Why’
Low-Fall (LF) ‘Why’
Rise-Fall (RF) ‘Why’
Fall-Rise (FR) ‘Why’
High-Rise (HR) ‘Why’
Low-Rise (LR) ‘Why’
Mid-Level (ML) ‘Why’

And a further ‘fall-plus-rise’ tone occurs when a falling tone is followed by a high/low rise tone in the same phrase as an afterthought. “It was getting quite late, really”

Click here to listen to further examples and learn more about what the tones express.

What is the best way to learn English intonation?

This depends on your own linguistic background. Is your native language ‘syllable timed'(with equal syllable lengths, such as French)? Or ‘stress timed’ (with unequal syllable lengths, such as English)? Intonation can also vary greatly between native accents of English, for example, the Welsh and Australian accents tend to have more rising tones, whereas the British RP accent and the general American have more falling tones as the norm. If you’d like to listen to examples of native and non-native English speakers, to compare their intonation patterns, just click here. Can you tell which accent is which?

Take the Quiz! How are your intonation listening skills?

Can you name the tonic syllable types in the sentences below?

“I don’t believe it! Not tomorrow!”
“Hi! Excuse me, but you’ve just sat in our reserved seats”
“Right, ok. Let’s go skiing in Canada instead”
“What? You mean they’ve decided to travel next week instead?”
“Shall we go for a pizza or a curry? What do you think?”
“They said they couldn’t come to the meeting as they were ill, but really they were at a party.”
“Turn left, left again, then straight down Tenth Street and it’s on the right, opposite the market.”
“Couldn’t we call a carpenter to do that? I haven’t a clue where to even start“