Intonation is important because it gives English its rhythm. It is the<br />emphasis that is placed on some words and not others. The extra emphasis<br />placed on the nouns, main verbs, adjectives, and adverbs makes them stand<br />out and if you only hear these words you will still have some idea about<br />what the person is saying. This is done in a few ways, but the most common<br />is to elongate (make longer) the main vowel sound in the word. This<br />emphasis not only produces the rhythm, but it also helps in comprehending<br />what a person has said. If you only hear only<br />“Sally…gone…store…buy…apples…oranges…coke”, you get that ideas<br />that Sally is at the store buying some things. If the intonation (emphasis) is<br />wrong you may only hear “has…to the…buy…some…and”, you will not<br />know what the person is talking about. The full sentence is “Sally has gone<br />to the store to buy some apples, oranges, and coke.”<br />From this we can see that intonation is important. One way to<br />improve your intonation and put the emphasis on the right word is to<br />practice. A good method is to take an audio or video file for which you have<br />the transcript. First, review the transcript and identify the nouns, main<br />verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. Then, listen to the audio or video file and<br />check to see if you have found all the words that will be emphasized. You<br />can now practice speaking along with the person in the file and put the same<br />emphasis on the same words. Repeat this until your intonation matches with<br />the person from the file.