Intonation is the voice going up or down on the strongest syllable of the most important word in a phrase or sentence. This movement up or down begins on the most important word in a phrase or sentence.

The nuclear tone is the most important part of the intonation pattern without which the intonation cannot exist. Phoneticians single out from 4 to 12 nuclear tones, but the majority of them agree that the following nuclear tones are most frequent and make up core intonation:

- "Received" is understood "accepted in the best society"
- is a prestige accent of an Englishman
- RP was at first typical for London area then it lost its local characteristics and was finally fixed as a ruling-class accent, often referred to as "Queen's English"
- It is also the accent taught at public schools
- A more broadly-based and accessible model accent for British English is represented as ВВС English**
- BBC is concidered to be the 'model' for English learners because it is easily understood

Many dictionaries represent pronunciation using the symbols of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).
From this you can find out about the sounds that make up a word and how it is stressed.
! It is useful to spend some time learning the IPA symbols so that you can make use of pronunciations shown in dictionaries.