In only one and two syllable words? Um... well, if the word is small and common (and, the, to, of, etc) it has a weak accent. If the word is a noun or a verb, it will have a strong accent (stress). In a full sentence, the stress highlights the words we are meant to hear. For two syllables, try this: if the first syllable sounds like a prefix (decide, repeat, dismay, concede, refuse, proclaim etc), put the stress on the second syllable. In all other cases, put the stress on the first syllable. If the word is a conjugation, stress always goes on the root syllable of course. Eg. eat: EATing, EATen. This may not be a perfect rule, but hope it works! Tell me how you go. :) You don't need to look up every word in the dictionary!

No rule. Just look every word up in dictionary. English, actually, has pretty much amount of exclusions, and not really specified.

It depends on the morphology and the lexical category of the word. If the word is suffixed, it will generally bear stress on its first syllable.This concerns words with grammatical suffixes (like Peachey's examples with -ing and -ed), but also lexical suffixes. In general, stress is found on the first syllable, except : - prefixed words that are not nouns (so mainly verbs, adjectives, and adverbs) : conCERN, rePEAT, unFAIR, etc. (words that are both nouns and verbs can behave differently according to their category, ex : REcord (n) / reCORD (v.) ) - words with some specific endings (generally borrowed from French) : -ade, -ese, -eur/euse, -aire, -que, -sce, -ette, -ee, -ier, etc. - dissyllabic verbs in -Vte (where V stands for "vowel", so : -ate, -ite, etc.) And themax : there ARE rules in English stress :)