Listening Problem #2 - Rhythm
As we continue talking about what interferes with our ability to understand what we hear, we move on from vocabulary to our next problem, the rhythm of English.
Let’s start by first defining what we mean by the rhythm of English.
In your English classes, you were probably introduced to the idea of stress. We’re not talking about the stress that comes from learning another language and makes you sweat😥, but the kind of stress that happens when you’re pronouncing multi-syllable words correctly. For example, it’s the difference between
DEE-vel-op-ment❌ and de-VEL-op-ment✅
or
VI-o-lin❌and vi-o-LIN✅.
If you need a little reminder about finding the stress in words, try this!
As a reminder, a stressed syllable is:
louder
longer
has a clear vowel sound
So, you hear de-VEL-op-ment and vi-o-LIN
Now, when you put these properly stressed words into sentences, you get an up-down pattern of speech that becomes the rhythm of English. This is true no matter what accent you’re listening to.
The deVELopment of my MUSical caREER HAPpened beCAUSE of my LOVE of the vioLIN.
How does all of that affect our ability to understand what we’re hearing?
Not only do we have an up-down pattern of speech, but we also have small pauses that break down our sentences into ideas (often called thought groups). If we look at the sentence above, there are three thought groups:
The development of my musical career / happened / because of my love of the violin.
These pauses help us determine what the speaker is trying to say.
When we don’t notice the pauses, it causes problems. I see this happen a lot with students when they’re dealing with phrasal verbs. For example: We broke down in the middle of the highway.
Students often process this as: We broke / down in / the middle of / the highway. When you break it down like this, it becomes hard to make sense of what you’re hearing.
Instead, you want to say: We broke down / in the middle of the highway.
If we look at another example, it’s even clearer how this can cause confusion.
The British left waffles on the disputed territory.
We can say this in two ways:
The British / left waffles on the disputed territory
The British left / waffles on the disputed territory
Which one is talking about pastries, and which one is talking about the indecision of the liberals?
The British / left waffles on the disputed territory = PASTRIES 🧇
The British left / waffles on the disputed territory = INDECISION 🤷
And one last example: John said the teacher is exceptional.
The written form, with proper punctuation, would tell us who is exceptional.
“John,” said the teacher, “is exceptional.”
John said, “The teacher is exceptional.”
But in spoken language, we have to use the pauses effectively to help us understand what we’re hearing.
In my next article, I’ll talk about how we can get better at rhythm and understanding what we’re listening to.