stress falls

[English4everyone]

Hi everybody,
What does it mean when they say "The stress falls with a regular beat."
Would you please give an example?
Thanks

[bhaisahab]

Hi everybody,
What does it mean when they say "The stress falls with a regular beat."
Would you please give an example?
Thanks

Who says it?

[English4everyone]

In the coursebook "Total English".
I can't understand it. Please help me with the idea of this sentence :"The stress falls with a regular beat."

[5jj]

We do need just a little more context.

[English4everyone]

"If I had left home earlier, I wouldn't have missed the train."
The book (of course my teacher) says the stressed words fall with a regular beat in the sentence.

[emsr2d2]

"If I had left home earlier, I wouldn't have missed the train."
The book (of course my teacher) says the stressed words fall with a regular beat in the sentence.

I'm inclined to agree with your teacher. If I read that sentence out loud, I find that I (slightly) stress the words in bold:

If I had left home earlier, I wouldn't have missed the train.

As you can see, with the exception of "I had", the stress falls on alternate words giving what I would describe as a regular beat if I were to clap along with the rhythm of that sentence.

[5jj]

I'm inclined to agree with your teacher. If I read that sentence out loud, I find that I (slightly) stress the words in bold:

If I had left home earlier, I wouldn't have missed the train..

I'd go for:

If I had left home earlier, I wouldn't have missed the train.

[emsr2d2]

I'd go for:

If I had left home earlier, I wouldn't have missed the train.

You're absolutely right. Sorry, I failed to separate the syllable and simply concentrated on which word I would stress. I still feel that regular beat.

[5jj]

You're absolutely right. Sorry, I failed to separate the syllable and simply concentrated on which word I would stress. I still feel that regular beat.

It is fairly regular.

English has been described, not completely accurately, as a stress-timed language. It doesn't matter how many unstressed syllables there are; it takes approximately the same length of time to say each group of them. Although the first sentence below has seven syllables, the second eleven, and the third fifteen, all three sentences take approximately the same amount of time to say, because all three have four stressed styllables:

John and Dawn have lived in France.
Peter and Mary are living in Poland.
Christopher and his father have been living in Austria.