Intonation

When it matters

Intonation is the melody of speech: the way the pitch of your voice rises and falls. English uses it to show whether you are asking or telling, whether you have finished or not, whether you are sure or doubtful, and how you feel about what you are saying. Your grammar and vocabulary can be perfect, and intonation still decides whether a reply sounds friendly or cold. Listeners rarely notice intonation errors as errors. They hear them as attitude, which is why intonation matters so much once your English is fluent.

How it works

Speech is divided into chunks called tone units, which usually match a phrase or a clause. Each tone unit has one main stressed syllable, the nucleus, where the main pitch movement starts. In neutral speech the nucleus is on the last content word: I'm going to the ↘shops. To show new information or contrast, you move it to another word: I asked for ↘black coffee, meaning not white.

The movement from the nucleus to the end of the tone unit is the tone. In this lesson ↘ marks a fall, ↗ a rise, ↘↗ a fall-rise and ↗↘ a rise-fall, placed just before the nucleus.

A few patterns deserve special attention.

• Wh-questions normally fall: Where do you ↘work? A rising wh-question sounds gentle, as when you talk to a child (What's your ↗name?), or it asks the other person to repeat something: You paid ↗how much?
• Question tags fall when you expect agreement and rise when you really want to know. It's cold today, ↘isn't it? is almost a statement; You're coming tonight, ↗aren't you? is a real question. See the lesson on question tags.
• With or, the tone shows what kind of question you are asking. Would you like ↗tea or ↘coffee? offers a choice of two. Would you like tea or ↗coffee?, with one rise at the end, asks whether you want a drink at all.
• Lists rise on each item and fall on the last: We need ↗bread, ↗milk and ↘eggs. A rise on the last item means the list is not complete.
• A non-defining relative clause is a separate tone unit, which is how listeners hear the commas: My brother, who is a doctor, lives near us. See defining and non-defining relative clauses.

Pitch range matters too. A fall that starts high sounds interested and warm; a fall that starts low and stays narrow sounds bored or tired, even when the words are polite.

Practice words

Practise each pair slowly with exaggerated pitch, then at normal speed. Exaggeration at first is useful: most learners use a narrower range than they think.

Common mistakes

• ✗ Are you ↗↘ready? with a sharp jump on the key word and a quick fall after it
  ✓ Are you ↗ready? with the pitch rising to the end
  A Ukrainian or Russian yes/no question often keeps the word order of a statement and uses a sharp rise on the key word followed by a fall (Ти гото́ва? / Ты гото́ва?). In English this melody sounds surprised or insistent. A neutral yes/no question rises from the nucleus to the end.
• ✗ ↘Thank you. ↘Yes. ↘Fine. said low and flat
  ✓ The same words with a fall that starts higher
  A low, narrow fall is neutral in many Ukrainian and Russian situations, but English listeners tend to hear it as cold, bored or annoyed. Thanks, greetings and short replies need a wider range.
• ✗ ↘Sorry. or What? when you did not hear
  ✓ ↗Sorry? or ↗Pardon?
  A falling sorry is an apology, so the speaker will not repeat anything. What?, the natural translation of Що? / Что?, sounds abrupt in English.
• ✗ You're free tomorrow, ↘aren't you? when you really do not know
  ✓ You're free tomorrow, ↗aren't you?
  A falling tag puts pressure on the listener to agree. If you are asking for information, let the tag rise.
• ✗ Would you like tea or ↗coffee? meaning choose one
  ✓ Would you like ↗tea or ↘coffee?
  If the last item rises, your guest hears a yes/no question and may simply answer Yes, please.

Try it