Syllabic or Stress Timed?


BE VERY AWARE OF THE FOLLOWING DIFFERENCE

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English is a stress-timed language : dpartmnt, °partmnt - usually one vowel in one or maybe two syllables receive a stress/pressure peak in pronunciation; the vowels in the other syllables are not pronounced or just faintly.

French is a syllabic language : dé-par-te-ment, a-ppar-te-ment - basically every syllable will have a vowel pronounced in it. NOTE that a syllable ending in an e and without an accent will often be neglected or reduced to a tiny, shortened/unfinished -er sound (as in daughter).

READ MORE ABOUT THIS: here and here or go to main menu

TASK 1: practise the difference

  1. Click on either site 1 or site 2
  2. If you know how to pronounce the words in English, this is the time to learn to say them à la French.
  3. If you aren't sure as to how to say them in French, time to jump ahead and start reviewing/learning the pronunciation rules. This project with the support of AntWise's resources will allow you to quickly absorb the critically important rules of pronunciation, so that you can do this task confidently. When you feel ready, please come back and complete this task.
  4. You must revisit this task in an on-going manner, even after successful completion, in order to reinforce the difference of pronunciation between the French and English. You have to learn to switch from one to the other swiftly and without effort to become bi-lingual.

TASK 2: learn to syllabize

  1. Click on either site 1 or site 2
  2. Select 5 words from each word ending groups that you are aware now and write them out into a Word Processor like MS Word
  3. Break the words now into syllables by using the dash ( -). A syllable is a sounded part of a word, so do not think in terms of written letters but spoken sounds. A syllable will have a vowel in it and maybe some consonants before or after it. Eg. for-ti-fi-ca-tion, gou-ver-ne-ment, i-llu-sion, in-co-rri-gible, i-ni-mi-table etc.
  4. Submit your work to the instructor.