Let us understand the meaning of stressed and syllable timed language.
What is Stress Timed Language?
The stress timed language is the language in which the accented or stressed letters are pronounced almost at regular intervals, and the unstressed syllables gets shorten to the same rhythm. Stressed language with a time constraint can be compared to those with time characters, where each letter takes about the same amount of time.
Example:
English and German are examples of stress-timed languages, while Spanish and Cantonese are syllable-timed.
Now how can you identify a stress sentence?
In order to identify a stress sentence, follow the 03 rules as stated below:
- Content words are stressed.
- Structure words are unstressed.
- The time between stressed words is always the same.
The following tables can help you decide which words are content words and which words are structure words:
Content words – stressed
| Words carrying the meaning | Example |
| main verbs | SELL, GIVE, EMPLOY |
| Nouns | CAR, MUSIC, MARY |
| Adjectives | RED, BIG, INTERESTING |
| Adverbs | QUICKLY, WHY, NEVER |
| negative auxiliaries | DON’T, AREN’T, CAN’T |
Structure words – unstressed
| Words for correct grammar | Example |
| Pronouns | he, we, they |
| prepositions | on, at, into |
| Articles | a, an, the |
| conjunctions | and, but, because |
| auxiliary verbs | do, be, have, can, must |
What are Syllable Timed Languages?
Syllable language is a language whose syllables take about the same amount of time to pronounce. It can be likened to a language that has a period of stress, when there is almost an equal amount of time between stressed syllables. Students whose first language can be described as having syllable-timed often have difficulty recognizing and producing English features such as contractions, primary and secondary stress, and clarity.
Example:
French is described as a syllable-timed language, English as a stress-timed one.
In the classroom
Tasks that can help students recognize these aspects of English include counting the number of words in a spoken sentence, sorting long words in terms of stress, and pronunciation.
English is a language of stress. That means some members will be longer, while others will be shorter. Most languages, however, have a time list of words, meaning that each letter has the same length. Examples of syllable time languages: French, Spanish, Cantonese. So, when an American hears an English sentence, for each letter of the same length, it only takes a moment to find the meaning. This is because we are familiar with the stressed groups of characters, the collections that will appear on the line because they are longer and more shapely. Our ears, our brains, go straight to those words. Those are the names of the content. When all the sets of letters are equal in length, then there is no way for the ear to know which words are most important.
To know the native language whether it is syllable – stressed or syllable – timed, please see
As under:
Syllable-stressed:
English, Thai, German, Russian, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Dutch
Syllable-timed:
French, Italian, Spanish, Icelandic, Cantonese Chinese, Mandarin