Stress-timed languages and syllable-timed languages.

Well, you've written the amount in numbers, but you have to write it out in words, too. That goes on the second line, there. Well, that's a sentence a teller said to a client at a bank. Do you guys have difficulty in understanding American movies and series in spite of having a complete grammar knowledge and a big vocabulary ? If so, maybe it is partly 'cause your mother tongue is a syllable-timed language. Well, there are many kinds of languages in the world depending on the aspects of the language. It could be the origin, the way they are written or the way they are spoken and so on. You probably have heard terms such as Indo-European languages, click languages, tone languages, sign languages, dead languages; you name it. But when it comes to the way they are spoken, there are basically two kinds of languages according to linguists. They are called stress-timed languages and syllable-timed languages. And that's what I am going to talk about in this video. Well, what is a stress-timed language? Well, a stress-timed language is a language in which the stressed syllables are pronounced rhythmically more or less at regular intervals, and unstressed syllables are shortened to fit this rhythm. For example English and Dutch are stress-timed languages. In English, some words, specially function words, sound different when they’re said on their own than they do when they’re said as part of a sentence. When they are said as part of a sentence, they often become very short, weak and soft. Look at the sentence "Birds eat worms". Ok now, I'm going to add more and more function words to this sentence, but you'll see the rhythm and the time I spend on saying this sentence is the same. Birds eat worms. The birds eat worms. The birds eat the worms. The birds are eating the worms. The birds have been eating the worms. The birds would have been eating the worms. In case you didn't know, um.. function words are words that do a grammatical function in a language such as will, would. And, what is a syllable-timed language? Well, a syllable-timed language is a language in which all the syllables are pronounced more or less at regular intervals, but bear in mind I'm not saying exactly at regular intervals; that's not true; I'm saying more or less at regular intervals. And unstressed syllables are not shortened. For example Spanish and Italian are syllable-timed languages. Look at this Spanish sentence. I'm going to add more and more function words to the sentence, and you'll see the time I spend on saying the sentence becomes longer and longer. Pajaros comen gusanos los pajaros comen gusanos los pajaron comen los gusanos los pajaros estan comiendo los gusanos Los pajaros han estado comiendo los gusanos. Los pajaros habrian estado comiendo los gusanos. A lot of language learners think that they need to pronounce each word fully and clearly in order to be well-understood. But when it comes to function words in English it's not the case. As I said before, English is a stress-timed language, not syllable timed. That means some syllables are long or very long specially syllables of content words, and some are short or very short specially syllables of function words. In case you didn't know, um.. content words are words that have meaning in a language such as tables, chairs. Um.. um.. Most languages in the world are syllable-timed, which means each syllable has more or less the same length. So learners whose first language is syllable-timed often have problems producing the unstressed extremely short and weak sounds in a stress-timed language like English. So, if your first language is syllable-timed, you'll have to make an extra effort to speak English naturally. That means you'll have to learn how to pronounce function words quickly and softly, most of the time using the schwa sound ,"ə", and content words loudly and forcefully taking more time. If not, your English won't sound natural nor interesting to us. Remember Americans sing English rather than speak it. Bye bye..