A 'greenhouse' vs a 'green house'
In a mock Speaking Test the other day, one of my students said that he lives in a greenhouse. I thought this was a little strange until I realised he meant a green house.
So what's the difference? The first one is to grow green things in the garden, and the second is a house that's painted green.
You can show this easily when you're writing because 'greenhouse' is one word and 'green house' is two.
But how can you tell the difference in Speaking? Watch this short video to see if you can hear the stress change.
Remember, noun phrases (a green house) tend to be more literal - the house is actually green.
Compound nouns tend to be more suggestive - the greenhouse isn't actually green.
An easy way to remember this is that MOST nouns have the stress on the first syllable, and compound nouns are no different (think about BEDroom, CARpark, BUSstop, FOOTball etc).
But when an adjective describes a noun, the stress is on the noun (the second word).
Members Academy Speaking & Pron Course- review word stress rules here.
