Rhythm
Rhythm is the melody of a language. In English, rhythm involves complex variations in stress (emphasis) within words and within phrases. Every word in English has a stress pattern. We choose one or two syllables to stress. These stressed syllables are louder, longer, and higher in pitch, while the unstressed syllables are rushed and quieter. Another way to think of rhythm is rapid variations in lingering and rushing.
Rhythm is a very complex topic and there are entire books written on it. Unlike other topics like individual consonants or vowels that you can practice and master within a couple of weeks, rhythm encompasses the entire language. Every word and phrase must be carefully considered for precise rhythm. Chances are, you will be studying rhythm for your entire English-speaking life.
Don’t be overwhelmed by this. There are general patterns and rules you can learn that will help you master rhythm over time. Start with your commonly used language (frequently used words and phrases in your daily language) and master those first.
Rhythm is important because listeners use it to break apart and analyze sentences. There is evidence that rhythm is the first part of language that we learn as babies and we use it to parse sentences and learn words. If you don’t get the rhythm of words and phrases right, a listener may have to go back and re-analyze your sentence and may even ask you to repeat yourself.
In this article, we will focus on the basics of rhythm of a simple phrase. While many languages have a regular and predictable rhythm, the rhythm of English depends on the content/meaning of what you are saying. We don’t SAY EVERY WORD WITH EQUAL STRESS. Rather, we linger on some words and rush through others.
In general, we stress important content words like nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. We unstressed/rush through grammatical function words like a, an, the, it, over, up, then, in, be, would, should and pronouns like he, she, them.
To stress a word, you make it louder, longer, and higher in pitch. More specifically, you make the most stressed syllable within the stressed word louder, longer, and higher in pitch.
As for the unstressed words, they are quieter, shorter, and are often pronounced with reduced, centralized vowels.
Watch the short video lesson above for an explanation of basic English rhythm for the phrase Jane can dance.
Written by Sarah Sherer, PhD 3/12/2023