Revealing how THE PINK PANTHER teaches English rhythm!

[@ndr_32]

I'm from Chile and speak an excellent English, not because I want to show off, but because native English speakers ask me "where in London are you from", not "where are you from?" It took me three years to dominate the rythm. If the video existed when I was studying English, it would have taken just 10 minutes to do so.

[@DrGeoffLindsey]

What a compliment! Thank you! And congratulations on your amazing achievement.

[@chrislorentz2911]

to do to do to do to do to do to do to do

[@ricardoq8459]

and what about spanish? I mean an spanish that the rest of the world can understand 😅😅😅😅 lol

[@urrywest]

@@DrGeoffLindsey I wish I could do that with mexican... . I am twenty years out and I still feel as if I am on the very first steps.

[@Dabhach1]

Yes, indeed. It's quite an achievement to dominate an language.

[@Muzer0]

Setting Shakespeare to Pink Panther is glorious and inspired. Love it!

[@jackx7382]

This was excellent!

[@yoavshati]

That part was hilarious!

[@lexwithbub]

And, if I'm not mistaken, including the great Sir Ian McKellan, young and barely recognisable.

[@pjabrony8280]

I would happily attend a production that had that song synced up for the entirety of the play.

[@Svensk7119]

Indeed.

[@reactionisst]

It's fascinating to me how native English speakers naturally use this rhythm without even being aware of it, while non-native speakers struggle with figuring out where the weak forms should go because the "rules" are unintuitive or unclear. Oddly enough, it makes me think of how babies first begin learning to speak. When they still use "baby-talk," I notice that while they are still making mostly gibberish noises to our ears, save for a few distinguishable words, one of the first things babies seem to grasp is imitating the rhythm of speech of the adults around them. It can often sound to me almost like babies are having entire conversations, even though I can't understand them. The sounds aren't articulated enough to form recognizable words yet, but it's as if they are trying to imitate the "music" of a language, before getting a handle on grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation.

[@mackereltabbie]

Have you seen the video of a dad having a conversation with his preverbal son while watching a match? It's been all over the internet a few times. The little kid is clearly talking English despite not having any words!

[@sampuatisamuel9785]

❤❤

[@kittykatz4001]

@@mackereltabbie I haven’t seen that one: but I have seen to the twin “pre-verbal” little boys still in diapers (I think they are in the kitchen) and one or both isn’t wearing anything but his diaper (nappy(?). It’s fascinating, bec they are clearly having a lengthy convo of the “music” of language they had yet to master! It was clearly a dialog/convo between two ppl! 😮

[@xxPenjoxx]

Not gonna lie, I would watch an hour of those pink panther speeches, each one sillier than the last. Made me smile so much.

[@DrGeoffLindsey]

How about TEN HOURS OF PINK PANTHER SHAKESPEARE?

[@moritamikamikara3879]

@@DrGeoffLindsey YEEEEEEEES!!!!!!

[@ErwinPommel]

@@DrGeoffLindsey So one run through of King Lear, then?

[@fatoeki]

@@DrGeoffLindsey please yes that would help us with getting it into our system!!

[@takeandbakejake3271]

@@DrGeoffLindsey I would happily watch all ten hours

[@yclynn653]

Native Chinese speaker here. This video really opens my mind. We tend pronounce every syllabus strongly, so even I know it's annoying to say so in English but it is just hard to change. Never know I can speak in a swing rhythm. So amazing!

[@RareFXChrisC]

It doesn't help that the Chinese teachers teaching English to students pronounce each word emphasizing each letter.

[@kurosakiichigo7475]

I think you mean syllable :) have a nice day

[@marynoonan6111]

Wow, you write English perfectly. Oh to be so fluent in another language. It's a great skill. 🎉🎉🎉

[@mentalitydesignvideo]

Syllable Syllabus is a corpus of books you need to master for a certain subject.

[@holliswilliams8426]

I am learning Arabic and I have to pronounce each letter because I am a beginner, so I'm slightly worried it might end up sounding unnatural.

I love the way Ian McKellen's "struts and frets" works with the music. It's almost like a piece of uncanny Shakespearean hip-hop.

[@DrGeoffLindsey]

Stunning performance that made him well-known in the 1970s.

[@krzysztofdrzewiecki5618]

As native Polish speaker, I must say, that it is very hard for me. We are going in very different direction - if something is written we tend to try to fully pronounce it. Sometimes we even add more letters if pronouncing it as it is would be too hard.

[@martavdz4972]

Yeah, same in Czech! I remember when I learned about this at university, I still kept pronouncing everything fully. I refused to de-stress the short words because it seemed so unfair on them 😂

[@krzysztofdrzewiecki5618]

​@@martavdz4972 Same here! Respect the letters ;) - if you write them, read them

[@anzelmasmatutis2500]

Why the waste - why write it down if you don't voice it loud? Oh, those French! :P

[@alyssadepiro40]

I understand but if you pronounce of course fully I think the the course in the sentence is a direction 'off course' for half a moment and need to rethink what is being spoken about.

[@CBlargh]

Hey, it could be worse. It could be Kanji...

[@saltrocklamp199]

That "and one" style of counting is actually how music students in the English-speaking world learn about musical rhythms. I never considered that this was taking advantage of the rhythm that's built inherently into the language! And now I'm curious how it's taught in other languages.

[@DrGeoffLindsey]

Yes, and you can pile up the weak forms. One ən ə two ən ə three ('and a') etc.

[@LFSDK]

we also say _og_ (meaning and) in Danish on these eigth notes, and because it's unstressed, you don't pronounce the -g [-w], so it's just [ʌ].

[@georgelam7071]

In Cantonese, an unstressed sound “ah” is added in front of the numbers (1,2,3,4). So it goes like ah-1, ah-2, ah-1,2,3,4. But this “ah” sound is different from the schwa because Cantonese is a tonal language. It is pronounced as /ɑ:/ with the lowest sound you can make (the 4th tone in Cantonese)

[@leroidlaglisse]

French is not a rhythmic language, but syllabic. It means rhythm is not important for understanding. If we add stress on some syllable, it just means we want to insist on a particular word. But it never sound weird, wherever we put the stress. We can also count music with "et un" (equivalent to "and one"), using stress. It sounds musical, but it doesn't add or remove any nuance in the semantic of what we sing. A lot of people believe it's why songs in French rarely sound as good as songs in English.

[@anthonygladman6558]

@@leroidlaglisse That explains why your poetry's all about counting syllables rather than metric feet like in English.

[@jameswebb302]

This rhythm in English is so powerful, I’m amazed at the extents to which native speakers (myself included) go to enforce it. For example, the question “What do you have to do today?” is spoken as “What d’y’have to do to day?”

[@DavidCruickshank]

I'm a native English speaker (English) and recently came across your content and honestly it's fascinating learning all these things that i guess i know subconsciously but don't know i'm doing until seeing it in your videos.

[@KnightlyNerds]

It reminds me of how film works. Most people don't know how to stage, shoot, and edit a scene. But we know when it isn't done correctly, and even more, many don't even notice when it is they just accept it. The same can be said about native speakers listening to native and non-native speakers.

[@thorbjrnhellehaven5766]

I can imagine that this is interesting to native speakers as well, forcing you to think about what you actually say. I remember a Norwegian lesson, where they taught us about dialects. A class mate claimed the equivalent of: I don't say "don't", I say "do not". (Without realizing themselves, they just spoke like they claimed not to.)

[@Jessepigman69]

It really is fascinating, every word that comes out of this gents mouth is like steroids for the brain

[@hotdog1214]

@@KnightlyNerds Reminds me of the adage: the best editing is the editing you don't see. We tend to know instinctively if something is wrong or bad but when its good or the norm, we just accept it without a whisper or a footnote. I'm endlessly fascinated how we take speech and language (English native for me) for granted but it has all these nuances and reasons for being the way it is.

[@jamesmcinnis208]

"honestly"

[@keithcurtis]

I have often heard that iambic pentameter was such a popular rhythmic device because it mimics English cadence so well. But the explanation usually stopped there, as if we are just supposed to accept this on face value. Thank you for explaining and demonstrating the concept and its origins so well.

[@Th3EpitapH]

The natural stress patterns of english also play arguably the most important role in forming the hugely complex rhythms of rap, as well. It can't be overstated how much structure the stress patterns add, that can then be played around with. Many languages have trouble keeping up in the traditional way, which often spawns distinct rapping styles

[@frufruJ]

I've always wondered how big a role the stress-timing of the English language played in the birth of rap. When I was an ESL teacher, I would often point out the difference between Czech and English rhythms and would point out rap (even though I don't listen to it).

[@dhwyll]

@@frufruJ There is a style of rap called "triplet flow" that uses dactyls (stressed-unstressed-unstressed) instead of iambs (unstressed-stressed). Compare this to Dr. Seuss who typically wrote in anapests (unstressed-unstressed-stressed).

[@frufruJ]

@@dhwyll Dactyl and Trochee are common in Czech, because we always stress the first syllable, no matter what. But the thing is not the stress, it's the timing. In Czech, all syllables are more or less the same length. We don't reduce our vowels, we don't have schwas, we can have a long unstressed syllable next to a short unstressed syllable. In English, you can fit several unstressed syllables in the space of one. In Czech, you can't do that.

[@mintsaturn]

I was thinking the same this as I was watching this!

[@Floymin]

Unfortunately, gangsta rap and hip-hop try to be fancy with this rhythm structure, and often get it wrong. It was best used in classic rap, from The Sugarhill Gang to NWA.

[@alechennings4774]

Jazz swing has been said to naturally evolve from the beats of the English language, Pink Patheris is most definitely jazz swing definitely makes sense swing and the English language lineup so effortlessly in so many ways

[@EricBridges]

What a perfect illustration of how the types of musical rhythms and conventions that feel "natural" to a culture are deeply rooted in the cadence of the language spoken. Amazing.

[@gonzalo_rosae]

It's incredible how well the Pink Panther's theme fits the rythm of the actors reciting Shakespeare. Loved the video!! Brilliant ✨

[@johnwatson2887]

It's actually not so incredible; it's purposeful! That is to say, it's not an accident or coincidence. Shakespeare mostly wrote "blank verse," not prose. That means that although the words rarely rhyme, they do follow a fixed meter (rhythm). With The Bard, it was usually iambic pentameter.

[@simona2391]

As a non-native speaker, I really appreciate what you're doing! I always found stress, intonation and rhythm to be some of the least intuitive aspects of the English language, so videos like these really help. Thank you very much! :)

[@Lafay.]

ditto!

[@leximatic]

🎵...so videos like this do really help🎶

[@munkiesyeah]

Absolutely amazing content! Thank you. I love this channel. I teach ESL and I'm always looking how I help serve English learners better. This information will be gold and fun for my advanced students. Thanks a million 🤗🤗🤩🤩

[@heatherwoodley8244]

I absolutely second this!! I'm so glad I found Geoff Lindsey.

[@guff9567]

@@heatherwoodley8244 Brown nose, brown nose : we thank you kindly for your lack of verse

[@Matt_The_Hugenot]

Best description of iambic pentameter I've heard. O'clock is a great example for non native speakers, most have already learned to tell the time in English and do have a ready made resource for pronunciation of weak forms.

[@skibidi.G]

O K L O K

[@jaredaberry]

Musically, iambs and weak forms fit in well with syncopated swing rhythms common in jazz and other music genres, which place the emphasis on the offbeat instead of the downbeat. I made this connection back in secondary school when I was learning Shakespeare and jazz simultaneously. I looked at iambic pentameter as just an example of a swing rhythm. Interestingly, the Pink Panther theme, while a great example of iambs, actually puts the emphasis on downbeats.

[@gcewing]

Jazzed-up Shakespeare sounds like an awsome idea, someone should do that!

[@Rose_Harmonic]

@@avablack3907 You wrote that reply exactly like a thousand bots I've seen, except you had a youtube link lol. I only listened for a minute or so but that was pretty cool seeing dante's inferno rapped.

[@irgendwieanders2121]

@@avablack3907 What the f**k - Thanks a lot, that is good s*...stuff!

[@MargoB]

"I made this connection back in secondary school when I was learning Shakespeare and jazz simultaneously." Making connections like that highlights just one of the values of a liberal arts education.

[@treschlet]

As a native english speaker from the midwestern u s, who is used to the language being seen as a confusing mishamash of junk, this focus on the musical rhythmic nature of the language is really heart warming

[@holliswilliams8426]

did you not study Shakespeare in school? It's totally all about the rhythm of the English language, he creates effects and characters by having them speak certain rhythms and verse patterns, I thought everyone knew this.

[@WGGplant]

@@holliswilliams8426 all they make us do is rhyming schemes, poetry vocab, and read-alouds w the class. (that everyone sleeps through) theres a reason 21% of adults in the us are illiterate

[@Providence83]

​@@holliswilliams8426in my advanced English class in highschool, we covered sonnet structures using Shakespeare as an example. Read Romeo and Juliet, covered the history of Shakespearean writing and it's impact on culture and its lasting effects... but literally not once were any of the lessons about what the hell made it special or different from the stuff which came before. He made up new words, some of them stuck, that was about all the descriptor for what made him unique. Learning that all of his writing was focused around using this natural rhythm of the language is news to me. A thing that drives me mad about modern U.S. English classes is that it takes *English Composition* and *Logic,* two subjects which _should_ be taught independently, and smashes them together into one class, "English."

[@beverlycrowell_]

​@@WGGplant I graduated high school in 1984. We studied Shakespeare.

[@rmdodsonbills]

@@holliswilliams8426 My experience with Shakespeare in school focused so much more on the literary aspects of his work. We hardly ever talked about anything linguistic. Even when we talked about the rhythm, we didn't really connect it more broadly to the language as a whole.

[@plusquamfuturum]

Well, I'm not a native English speaker, but I'm a professional linguist, with English being my main speciality. I graduated from one of Russia's best-known universities of linguistics back in 1996... My point is, dear Dr Lindsey, that when I watch your videos, it rings so many bells for me regarding those fantastic classes of English phonetics and grammar that we had when being students. And more importantly, I even realize it a lot better, after so many years, how great our professors were, back in that non-Internet era, to have been able to teach us all those "little big" things which really make your speech sound more or less natural and authentic, even when your mother tongue is so much different. Looking forward to seeing your next one, whatever it will touch upon. Best regards.

[@merseyviking]

"...which really make[s] your speech sound more or less..." nice use of the iambic pentameter there :)

[@plusquamfuturum]

@@merseyviking Why [s]? :) "...things which really make...", not "...things, which really makes..."

[@plusquamfuturum]

@@scintillam_dei Actually, in Russian, my first name sounds differently. The first unstressed vowel is not the one in 'sir' or 'burn'. The stressed syllable also differs a lot from the normal way the word 'gay' should sound in English. Again, the vowel is different, and it makes the preceding consonant 'g' much softer than the regular English 'g'. But, on the other hand, the Russian for 'gay' and the authentic pronunciation of the second syllable of my name - they do sound the same.

[@plusquamfuturum]

@@scintillam_dei A Russian proverb says: the less you know, the better you sleep. Another one (translated word by word): live for a century and learn for a century - anyway die stupid.

[@scintillam_dei]

@@plusquamfuturum Yes, but people who don't know Russian, and who use English only, will not pronounce it correctly. Here in Cambodia, they can't say my name right, of course. Instead of saying Alejandro, they say "Alek Jandro" with an English J. It's funny. I met a Russian man here. He was asking for help with a cardboard. He was around 30 years old, and was probably fleeing the coming draft. Volodimir sounds like a darker and evil version of Vladimir. See my video on the swastika in the NATO logo. :-) May Russia win, althugh all sides will lose.... and then islam will take over the ashes, 'cause Russia, the Divided Non-Kingdom, the US, Canada, Australia, india and China have many Muslims just waiting fo those governments to destroy each other. I'm considering saving your profile pic and making it my own also. :-) The only problem with it is that the rainbow shouldn't have anything to do with sodomites. The truthphobes stole the rainbow. Their symbol should be the HIV or a crooked dildo with feces on it, or a gaping anus with herpes. One of the reasons I left the US is that's it's gay in the non-happy way, crooked and not straight. I plan to learn Russian later.

[@lindsayheyes925]

I'm a native Engljsh speaker, and hadn't realised this... so I just tested it by listening to East Enders. I was shocked by how many of lines in the script are actually Iambic Pentameter - about half of the intense dialogue. We just can't help it. Who'd've thought? BTW, hilarious presentation of the content.

[@michaelball4683]

en done ferget the gl'o'all stop

[@crys_cornflakez]

Although I’ve studied metrical feet in poetry for years, I never thought to actually apply Shakespeare/ every day speech in certain rhythms (eg. Iambic Pentameter) to musical beats. This really opened my eyes. Thank you so much for your content 💖

[@filipberntsson6634]

I ASSUME, but have no idea, that Rufus Wainwrights album "Take All My Loves - 9 Shakespeare Sonnets" could be up your alley then. He's written music to some great sonnets, and they are performed by him alongside some other phenomenal singers, interlaced with orated versions of the same sonnets. Quite the masterpiece. A Woman's Face (sonnet 20), Unperfect Actor (sonnet 23), and All dessen müd (sonnet 66) are some of my favs!

[@skaldlouiscyphre2453]

You're that much closer to recording your mixtape now.

[@SlavicCelery]

I think one of the best ways to see the natural musicality of English, are the videos where people put dialogue from tv shows to drums. Like this clip from IASIP set to drums - kzbin.info/www/bejne/f5_FkohpbZyKopo

[@crys_cornflakez]

Woah. What an excellent recommendation! I’ll be sure to check that out, thank you :)

[@reepicheepsfriend]

As a music student/teacher this absolutely fascinates me. The type of musical meter you are describing is sometimes referred to as compound meter, where each beat is divided into a triplet. The nursery rhyme Row, Row, Row Your Boat is a great example. In the song, when you hear "Merrily, merrily, merrily", all three triplets in the beat are being articulated. But in "Row Your Boat", only the first and third ones are, and the third triplet joins more naturally to the beginning of the next beat, so we hear "Your Boat" as more strongly connected, even though actually, "Your" belongs to the same beat as the preceding "Row". Compound meter is absolutely characteristic of many traditional English songs. It's found in the tune for The Star Spangled Banner, which was originally an English drinking song. I'm convinced there is a connection linguistically and musically. But strangely, compound meter has largely fallen out of style in todays popular music.

[@caimansaurus5564]

it's surely more simply analogized to triplet swing? which has also been common (and remains common in certain contexts) in anglo-american popular music

[@reepicheepsfriend]

@@caimansaurus5564 I'm thinking more recent than that, like the last 20 years. There are still some popular songs that use swing, but it's actually more common nowadays for popular songs to have a straight beat division. The other exception I thought of would be slower ballad-style songs like Ed Sheeran's "Perfect." But songs like that sound distinctly old-fashioned to our ears.

[@anidnmeno]

yer boat, yer boat, yer boat yer boat yer boat yer boat yer boooooat

[@yahccs1]

Yes I was thinking it's 6 8 or 12 8 timing, dividing the crotchets into 3rds not quarters. 12 8 is not an option on my music writing program but it does have triplets, but you can't divide them into 2/3 and 1/3 length notes. 6 8 works OK. Being in 4 4 and splitting a note into a dotted quaver and a semiquaver just sounded wrong... Oh I needed the skippy rhythm from 6 8 instead, but not in all bars. But in 6 8 timing/meter, some bars can have 4 beats by using 4 dotted quavers instead of alternating quavers and semiquavers. That's the way I had to fix the rhythm in one piece so it sounded like switching between 4 4 and 6 8. Awkward to get the rhythm right sometimes!! Some people can speak in a very musical way -it sounds like the language was designed to be sung rather than spoken.

[@AlexanderClark-x4m]

It's currently conventional to group all divisions together with the beat that precedes them, but it is not necessarily natural to do so. "Your" does not "actually . . . [belong] to the same beat as the preceeding "row", it is only conventionally grouped with it.

[@rafaeljonathancamiloveraro4199]

As a Spanish native speaker, I can tell that cliticisation is one of the hardest parts of learning English. As kids, we are constantly told to pronounce every syllable in every word clearly. Is almost like the opposite philosophy of cliticisation. Now that I am learning Finnish, I see that for Finns cliticisation is also quite unnatural (my Finnish profesor is all the time asking to pronounce every syllable from every word during the whole sentence). Super interesting video, thank you for sharing it.

[@martavdz4972]

Just a side note, cliticization is actually quite rare in European languages. It does not exist in Slavic languages, Italian, Welsh, Baltic languages, Estonian, Hungarian, Romanian... English might even be the only European language with cliticization. Perhaps Irish Gaeilge or Danish have it, too, I'm not sure about them.

[@msai257]

Yeah, as a Finn, cliticisation is about the furthest from what we do. Finnish has a very clear rhythm, arising from the first syllable always being stressed. No exceptions, the first syllable is stressed. Then in English you're supposed to "swallow" prefixes :'D

[@irgendwieanders2121]

@@martavdz4972 My natural Viennese is full of cliticization. For example the greeting "Ich habe die Ehre" (I have the honour, used in greetings) is reduced to D'Ehre - leaving only the important part (honour) and reducing everything else to a (weak) D before it... That is an extreme example, I know 🙂

[@carlosmartinezbadia2532]

​@@martavdz4972 Maybe Portuguese? I suspect that's one reason why the Spanish (anti-clitizising) find spoken Portuguese so difficult and the Portuguese find Spanish so easy

[@bellycurious]

​@@carlosmartinezbadia2532 , you're right. Portuguese is a stressed-time language like english. An example: the word "perceber" sounds Prcber. The 2 first "e" are almost inaudible.

[@mariecarie1]

As a speech therapist, I’ve known about weak forms, but haven’t seen it demonstrated or explained as perfectly as this. Well done! Love the shirt, btw ❤

[@stevekeiretsu]

I've long held that Henry Mancini is a genius. I only discovered your channel a couple of weeks ago but I'm thinking you might be to linguistics youtube what he was to film scores...

[@DrGeoffLindsey]

🙏🙏🙏

[@Osama_Abbas]

Totally agree. I discovered the channel a few days ago and I've learnt a LOT. Thank you Dr. Lindsey. Your channel is amazing; very under-rated and under-appreciated though!

[@Svensk7119]

Also just recently discovered. Toe-day, infact! (Can "in" be a weak form) shakes his head to clear it (oy-boi-boi-boi-yoib!) Now, for the first in my life, I actually have a clear picture of iambic pentameter! Thanks, Doc! Thou hast my thanks!

[@harsimaja9517]

English linguistics for sure ;)

[@GuyChapman]

I have been working with people in India for years. This has opened my eyes!

[@axelwalter4046]

As a Dutchman, your explanations are incredibly useful, and I had no idea English was so much fun (after seeing at least 10 of your videos I think). But also, that it had so many "hidden" rules. Now I realise, though fluent in English with a pronunciation that is (thank the gods !) not Dutch but more leaning towards real British English, that I still have a long way to go to speak better English.

[@TillyOrifice]

His explanations aren't a Dutchman, though.

[@KnightlyNerds]

@@TillyOrifice lol

[@munkiesyeah]

Axel, well done to you for having a near British accent, but I have to say that a Dutch person speaking English with their accent is SO nice! I hope you can keep your Dutch accent just a little bit 😁😁

[@axelwalter4046]

@@munkiesyeah Thanks Marie, I'll "try"......

[@fatoeki]

@@munkiesyeah haha all of us dutchies really dislike the Dutch accent

[@Liketreeswalking556]

I’m a native English speaker from America and I can’t stress how mind blowing these things about my own language

[@mad0131]

As a native speaker, I hardly realise that I'm doing half the things in these videos on a daily basis, and it makes me realise how complex language is

[@MichaelKingsfordGray]

Yet you fail to recall your real name!

[@earthoid]

My wife and I, both native English speakers, were laughing hysterically as you compared Pink Panther and spoken English rhythmic patterns. Thanks for pointing that out!

[@Darxide23]

One reason I love videos on language, especially my own language, is learning all the little things that I know, but didn't know that I know. It also explains just why non-native speakers often sound weird, but in ways I couldn't properly articulate before. This one also brings up memories I have of some non-natives saying that English sounds like singing to them. And this is probably why.

[@anenglishmanplusamerican7107]

Agreed.

[@johnsrabe]

Interesting! I have an American friend who speaks Mandarin and he says when the Chinese imitate English speakers they roll their jaws around and make indistinct sounds like they have marbles in their mouths. I guess because we are - to them - so imprecise about tones.

[@sebastienh1100]

Yes, I am French and we often envy how easy it is to sing in English compared to French

[@johnsrabe]

@@sebastienh1100 well that’s interesting! But the ones who got it down - Piaf, Aznavour - really got it down! I have no idea how CA even made some of those rolling R and other consonant sounds.

[@nordicmind]

I imagined this would be an insanely boring channel when I first noticed it, but it has turned out to be one of the best channels I've ever come across! Your videos are amazing! Thank you for making them!

[@DrGeoffLindsey]

Wow, praise indeed! Thank you!

[@vholzak]

Shakespeare's writing is all unstressed then stressed back and forth - it's pretty brilliant he made his plays follow this cadence in a mesmerizing sing-songy way... and maybe also why they've endured 400 years

[@fyuuredhijgfzregjjygtdftyi6021]

Shakespeare was a huge Mancini fan, don't you know

[@mikechoe97]

This video is fantastic, I love it. It's good to see people still analyzing and discussing the nuances and complexities of the English language in such a fun and digestible way. The way you synced up Shakespeare lines with the Pink Panther theme was so much fun, I felt like I was in kindergarten again

[@xolang]

You're amazing! I'd never realized that stressing the weak words is what often makes non native accents sound so foreign. and the comparison with Mona Lisa is really good. By trying to stress too much, we listeners end up being so distracted. Thank you and greetings from the equator! 😃

[@PC_Simo]

Indeed 👌🏻😃!

[@YewbPlays]

This is a brilliant exploration of the idea that a great melody usually mimics natural patterns of speech - in both rhythm and pitch direction. Nobody's using perfect fifths in their day-to-day speech, but strong, directional intervals often correspond surprisingly well to stressed syllables.

[@user-td4do3op2d]

As a music graduate with an interest in linguistics, I often accidentally hear speech as musical rhythm and sometimes it gets stuck in my head like a tune. It would be interesting to transcribe speech in different dialects or languages into music notation.

[@DrGeoffLindsey]

Some phoneticians used to do that kind of think. Janáček too.

[@vintage0x]

@@DrGeoffLindsey and Steve Reich, of course!

[@casualevils]

Yes, Reich's piece Different Trains is all about taking snippets of speech and transcribing them into melody.

[@philroberts7238]

@@DrGeoffLindsey I would like to know more about the phenomenon of language learning for babies. It seems to me that when they start trying to "talk" by having imaginary conversations they are first off simply imitating rhythms and musical patterns from their parents' speech, so it could be argued perhaps that the *accent* is the first thing they pick up, well before specific phonemes have aquired any semantic meaning. I imagine it would be the same process learning any mother tongue, but I'd be interested to hear if there is any research on this matter, seeing that the stress patterns of English are, as you say, more significant than in languages such as French or Japanese.

[@KalebPeters99]

@@philroberts7238 if I recall correctly there is research on this termed under "babbling"

[@danadnauseam]

When I was a kid, the joke was "What did the Pink Panther say when it stepped on an ant? Dead ant, dead ant . . . . ."

[@Zzyzzyx]

There is a KZbin channel where a heavy metal guitarist plays along to different things, including people yelling and such. He doesn't alter the rhythm of the yelling in any way, and it's remarkable how musical it is.

[@DrGeoffLindsey]

What's the channel?

[@Zzyzzyx]

@@DrGeoffLindsey kzbin.info/www/bejne/pWnLiqWEqLeiitU

[@kiranevetts7868]

I think she's talking about Andre Antunes.

[@zatoichiMiyamoto]

Also famous bassist MonoNeon does this all the time with video memes...Even adding harmony

[@sickboy481]

@@DrGeoffLindsey Andre Antunes, example: kzbin.info/www/bejne/qHS2nIp_mbmChKM

[@esthern3437]

Oh my goodness!! I've been trying to help my child with his spelling and this has been one of the biggest hurdles for him. We don't write things the way we say them and it's very frustrating for someone who needs the rules to be told it's "just because that's how we do it." There are practical reasons for how we employ our language and bringing them into the light is so very helpful for those who need explicit rules. Some of this info may be over my child's present level of comprehension but the examples are great and I'm certain he will get the jist of it. Thank you so much for putting this tool into our language tool box!

[@moonloversheila8238]

I’ve really fallen down a rabbit hole with your videos! I can’t stop watching them. Love the Pink Panther comparisons!

[@georgefenning4844]

This has massive implications for song writing and lyrics fitting to certain rhythmic patterns . Fascinating and thought provoking.

[@quaz450]

As someone learning japanese and discovering its rhythms its interesting to look at English in this light as well. Every language has a unique rhythm

[@brentwalker3300]

But in Japanese you must learn the bow. I taught English in Japan and spoke only Japanese with my then girlfriend. Even though I don't practice Japanese much anymore, when I do happen upon an opportunity to speak Japanese, my entire body language changes. It's crazy.

[@lilylou4693]

Yes, please! More of this! Non native here and the "of course/off course" example blew my mind! 🤯

[@megcsa]

That was fascinating. As an author, I sometimes feel that a sentence is off, that its music doesn't sound right to me, and by making even a small change, it somehow becomes better. Your video explains why to a degree.

[@zammich3649]

Sometimes non-native English speakers ask me to check their English sentences, and a lot of the time it ends up being me moving things around just so rhythmically they're more satisfying or more varied.

[@Ingu.z]

Oh wow, this will be really helpful for me as a Swede. I think I can see a parallel to when I teach others to pronounce Swedish properly, is to listen to and follow the melody of what I'm saying, rather than correcting each error. It sounds stupid, but once I ask people to follow along with the melody they're suddenly, and out of nowhere from not doing a good job, doing it perfectly.

[@johnzo2869]

Thank you very much for the excellent video, Doctor! As a non-native learning English for over 20 years and using it as 2nd language daily, I was still shocked to learn the ideas that 1)weak form works as pre-fix and 2)equal stress or full pronunciation of every word would confuse native listeners. Looking forward to more such videos helping non-natives understand native speaking English, especially those fast spoken English and casual speech, eg. drama, films, sports commentary. Thank you!

[@ClulssCrs3310]

I feel like I have to learn English all over again. 20+ years as a naturalized citizen with strong accent and now this is starting to make sense

[@Riccardo_Mori]

Dr Lindsey, I am so very glad to have found your channel. I'm not a native English speaker, but I've been speaking & writing it for more than 35 years. And while communicating in English in writing has never really been a problem, I've always been quite self-conscious about the spoken part: mispronouncing words, or using a tone/cadence that could feel a bit alien to a native speaker, and so forth. The things I'm learning through your short and intriguing lessons here have really helped me out. Thank you. Cheers, //Rick

[@seropera]

I can't remember the last time I was so enlightened and so entertained at the same time. Congratulations. You make my week. Greetings from México.

[@long_dan]

Bravo! This video is a masterpiece. A subject English learners are not usually familiar with, explained elegantly and wittily in simple terms. I teach English as a foreign language in Spain and explaining weak forms and sentence stress by using a well-known musical pattern is something that had never crossed my mind. Hope you don’t mind if I borrow it for my lessons.

[@DrGeoffLindsey]

Please do!

[@brentwalker3300]

As a former ESL teacher, I can say quite confidently that using music in any way to teach languages is a winning strategy. It helped me greatly in improving my Spanish while teaching in Chile.

[@Jadzla]

I just came in to see Patrick Stewart and learnt something new about the language I’ve spoken all my life. Not disappointed at all!

[@SiddharthS96]

Really good video! Yes, please make a video on what happens when weak forms are stressed to mean something else!

[@duszekanyzratak]

I was looking for this comment! I would love to hear about this 🙂

[@EC42904]

I thought his example of the difference between “of course” and “off course” was great because that specific distinction threw my classmates for a loop *twice* when I, a native English speaker, was delivering a speech to my French and Chinese classmates (we were all preparing to become professional conference interpreters). Although their level of English comprehension and production were overall excellent, and although my English is quite neutral North American English, at the point in my speech where I mentioned the subject going “off course” (and specifically stressed each word equally while using an “ah” vowel rather than the “uh” schwa sound in “of”), both times I delivered the speech, none of them caught the idiomatic expression and instead, they thought I’d said “of course.” This is particularly difficult for French speakers to pick up on since French syllables are mostly unstressed, which is incidentally why French pronunciation and comprehension is usually difficult for English speakers who can’t find those little toeholds they’re so used to in spoken English and are instead baffled by the swooping aural phrases of several French words slurred together.

[@meredithburton7918]

Feeling a bit self-conscious about commenting on a video about the English language, but wanted to say thank you. An algorithm threw this video into my feed and i couldn't more pleased. Liked and subscribed.

[@DrGeoffLindsey]

Thanks Meredith.

[@girlplanetboy]

As a linguist and teacher of technical ESL/EFL in all its genres and registers, I absolutely loved this explanation of how rhythm is integral to native-like pronunciation in connected speech. Bravo Geoff, you nailed it. I have been banging on to my students till the cows come home (they never do!), how vital the & 1 & 2 & etc. are for hitting the intonation patterns that give English its unique rhythmic cadences. Thank you. I shall now subscribe!

[@nothingmancer1607]

This is one of the best videos I've seen on KZbin. As a non native English speaker who loves the English language I'm so grateful for this lesson, I had no idea about these weak forms. This is what the internet is for. Thank you!

[@tepan]

Being also a music theory enthusiast, I enjoyed the Pink Panther layer of your explanation a lot! Thank you!

[@carlotapuig]

Dr Lindsey's videos are so good to learn proper English as a foreigner. Had I had these short vids decades ago, I would have developed a good pronunciation in weeks/months, which I didn't manage in 20 years. I learned other languages with a pretty good pronunciation but in English I've had a somehow ok but very non-native pronunciation for decades. Now I'm feeling angry at all native teachers and speakers who never corrected our faulty pronunciation but rather learned themselves to understand us when we were saying "off course" and millions of other funny things... The problem is the extreme politeness in English speaking cultures that prevent natives including professional English teachers from frankly telling us that we are speaking not really that well... which would be a massive help to us. Dr Lindsey proves how easy it would be to learn proper English if English teachers mastered this stuff.

[@ayanimea]

I'm French and though I considered myself fluent in English, it took me years to hear the rhythm. And now, I have a really hard time speaking English in front of English speakers because I feel sooo self-conscious when I open my mouth xD

[@Sprosbold]

Grew up with an English dad and a German mom in English-speaking South Africa. Went to a German school, but was always very confident in my English abilities. I was always slightly hurt when other locals pointed me out as a foreigner because I'm fairly sure I don't have a distinct accent different from anyone else here. Watching this video has made me see that what I considered steady and deliberate speech was completely ruining the rhythm and that that's likely what singles me out. Very enlightening, thank you Dr Lindsey!

[@mattt.4395]

even with a word like "today," most ESL speakers/learners will pronounce it as "too-day"

[@cassi72]

Fascinating and amazing. I'm now left with the desire to watch hours of Shakespeare with the Pink Panther theme playing behind every line. Actually - it probably will play in my head now! Thanks for another interesting video!

[@yannschonfeld5847]

Yes, This is the meat of teaching English as a foreign language. I spent 30 teaching English in Brittany. I put the accent on spoken English, listening and speaking. I had my pupils learn dialogues by heart via cassetttes from their manuals at home, then CDs plus music, cartoons, movie excerpts etc. One written short story for kids " No one knows where Gobo goes when Gobo goes away." These are just memories now but I totally concur with this contention. on weak forms versus strong forms. Kids in Middle Schools thought it was fun. Grammar and vocabulary simply came together with learnt dialogues. My pupils learnt British English. Except once I heard a pupil pronounce /hɔːs/ instead of /haʊz./ for HOUSE. Then I realized she was imitating me! Poor girl.Thank you Dr.Lindsey.

[@SooperToober]

Brilliant is the prof who entertains!

[@aureliaa654]

Brilliant! It amazes me how gracefully you present the most important but often very hard to grasp linguistic topics! I'm a non-native English speaker and a linguist. The information you are sharing is so helpful in understanding the core of the language and summarizing what i acquired over the years. Please keep posting, i would love to hear anything you feel like sharing with the audience 🙏

[@janelantestaverde2018]

Haha, this is illustrated in a very lovable way 🧡 Something I'll pay more attention to as a non-native English speaker.

[@askadia]

This rhythm is so characteristc of English native speakers that you keep putting schwas even in foreign languages when you try to speak them

[@ethandouro4334]

As a brazilian who most people say I have a british posh kind of accent when talking in english, this video helped me a lot! I still pronunced "of course" as "off course" thank you!

[@glowingfish]

I am an ESL teacher who works mostly with Spanish speakers, and this is one of the most difficult things--- English words that are almost identical with Spanish words, but with a different stress pattern. To teach my students, and to learn myself. I remember a Spanish speaker spending an afternoon trying to get me to say "com-bert-ien-do-se" instead of "con'verted". My muscle memory of how to pronounce those words was so hard to change! I have also changed my pronunciation of some English words to not have schwas, so from learning Spanish I know say co-mence instead of c-mence.

[@ter2710]

Nothing to brag about

[@Josh1OD]

That's so interesting! Thanks for sharing your experience.

[@revangerang]

@@ter2710 calm down

[@ter2710]

@@revangerang 🤣

[@idabrit]

It’s amazing how it starts to sound like the actors are deliberately delivering their lines in time to the music!

[@sooskevington6144]

As a retired ESL teacher I sometimes watch videos of people 'teaching' non - native speakers how to 'sound like a native speaker, and others discussing the origins of words simply for curiosity. This is the first one I have watched that I found genuinely interesting. Having fou d the channel I have subscribes as I definitely want to hear more of what Dr. Lindsey has to say.

[@Korporaal1]

I love it when a true professional takes a pun and runs with it! The Pink Pentameter!

[@AngloSaks666]

Respect for the comprehensibility of delivery of this, the careful and broad selection of examples and comparisions, plus the thoroughness in finding and editing in real examples. Also for getting ER2 and JFK rapping along with the Pink Panther Theme. And the fusion with Shakespeare towards the end is quite awesome, and gives the whole thing so much solid credibility. Then doing it with your own normal language brings it nicely together and drives it home. This is the first pure language 'explanation' (it goes a bit beyond that, of course) that I've ever considered showing to my students.

[@Tacos135]

Putting iambic penatmeter to the pink panther theme is genius! Very funny to me as a native English speaker! Have a blessed week everyone! God loves us all so much:)

[@STTurtle]

There's so much more to know about the English language than I realised! I've been watching a couple of your videos and I love how you present these topics in such an interesting and humorous way every time. Great video!

[@michapurzynski8509]

I have to say your lessons are eye opening and are completely changing my english after like 20+ years of having used it professionally. Thanks a lot

[@zoverlvx8094]

I'm so happy I've stumbled into your channel. I used to love linguistics and this content just feeds my soul.

[@allissondiego1989]

This is top tier content. I think we all want more videos comparing natives to non-natives and what makes them sound different.

[@blinkerz4676]

how can something male them sound different? What is male have anything relevance? Male or female, we can never may not confirm.

[@allissondiego1989]

@@blinkerz4676 typo

[@blinkerz4676]

@@allissondiego1989 Ah, I see mister Allisson Diego, I too make mistakes, as we all do! As Jared says "Pobody's Nerfect"

[@bob___]

Referring to the example of "of course" in the video, I find myself saying /ə/ rather than /əv/ before consonants -- "o' course I do" -- although I sometimes drop it altogether "course I do" -- as the video notes is often the case, especially in casual speech.

[@ВиталийСлонов-ч4ъ]

Thanks for your work. Much appreciated.

[@philippos4330]

Please please do more videos on weak vs. strong forms, and the use of weak forms to make meaningful distinctions. This is really helpful for ESL people! And your content is amazing, thanks so much. PS: In Greece we hear about iambic meter a lot in junior high school, since an awful lot of Greek poetry is written in what we call iambic 15-syllable meter. But I had no idea that this thing exits in English poetry as well! Mind-blowing stuff.

[@allm51]

Oh man ! As a Brazilian whose pation has always been learning English, I find this channel is simply outstanding ! I can spend hours watching its videos and never get tired. Quite the opposite, I feel like diving into the pronunciation field even deeper. Thanks for your amazing work, Dr. Geoff. 🙏

[@kernicole]

What a lovely video! It took me back to September 1966, when, as an embryo "English assistant", I followed a short course at the Sorbonne on teaching English as a foreign language. The points you make in this videos about weak forms were illustrated by the sentence "I'm sorry I'm late, but there was a traffic-jam". I then (rather to my surprise) spent the rest of my professional career teaching English in France, where I used the above sentence frequently. Concerning schwa, I never did succeed in getting my pupils to pronounce "photographer" correctly, especially if they had the written word before them. I wish I'd thought of the Pink Panther!

[@kernicole]

"The points you make in this video..." Sorry.

[@angela_somanythings5670]

Brilliant!! I'm an American Shakespeare scholar. I studied it from pre-2010, and I love this content very much! I wish I had books to help pass-on this knowledge. I will have to search around for some to add to my son's education! Thank you for this fascinating work!

[@hailstorm324]

The last point about pentameter and weak forms being the common rhythm in english is interesting, especially in a musical context. The scotch snap could be considered the musical equivalent of a weak form and it's prevalence in english-language popular music can be explained this way.

[@Badass_Brains]

I didn't have any interest in linguistics before I stumbled on your channel, but wow this video is incredible, I'm so glad I discovered your channel! So interesting!

[@dl1889]

Such an interesting video, detailed explanation and fun examples! Thank you so much, now I finally understand what has seemed so attractive in native speakers' way of talking - it has been the rhythm. Knowing this I'll try to improve my speech as well. Will be looking forward to new videos, your channel is extremely helpful and simply great!

[@adasoulful2238]

Oh man, I love how informative and insightful your channel is. I'm a non-native English speaker, so I always have a really difficult time when it comes to talk with a native speaker. Thank you so much.

[@vl292]

Intriguing and frightening at the same time. Even though I've been interested in English language for the past 20 years and have been trying to learn it on daily basis, these videos reveal how difficult it actually is to speak proper english as a non-native.

[@Kire1120]

"proper English" is a relative term. I'd say as long as you can understand people and they can understand you, you are speaking it properly enough.

[@josephskulan750]

Many years ago I heard my neighbors talking on the other side of a wall. I couldn't make out the words, but I noticed that there was a distinct rhythm to their speech, and I've been noticing the rhythm of spoken English ever since. I don't know enough to say anything useful on the topic, but it fascinates me, and I wonder if an unconscious effort to maintain a rhythm might have an effect on things like word choice and word order where more than one option is available. For example, I can see how the extra unstressed syllable could make the much maligned "irregardless" more rhythmically graceful than "regardless" in some instances.

[@carlosmartinezbadia2532]

Brilliant! Rythm not only makes English flow more easily - both pronounced and understood - it also adds another layer of meaning when the more predictable sentence stress is changed at will: -THANK you - thank YOU Mastering the usual rythm as explained here (content v. function word) is usually one of the last and more satisfactory achievements for natives of many languages, and I'd say that the ability to alter it subtly in speech, with considerable consequence in conveyed meaning is the natural next milestone, and tastes like glory. Maybe this could be the subject of an upcoming video

[@javierinostroza7276]

I've never clicked on the bell before, but I will now. That ending was pure gold.

[@PC_Simo]

As an associative synaesthete, I love the description of ”ə”, as a ”colourless vowel”; since I very strongly view it as a sort of beige, sandy-coloured vowel, while basically every other vowel has a chromatic colour attached to it. Some even have multiple colours, depending on the context; like, how ”A” is normally magenta (the original magenta; *_NOT_* the CMYK-magenta); but, when our set of vowels is very restricted, it can change; like, if we only have 3 vowels: A, I, U (looking at you, Inuktitut), A is now white, I has turned from green to blue, and U has turned from maroon to red. Generally, I tend to view back vowels as having cold colours, and front vowels with warm colours. 🤔😅

[@fyuuredhijgfzregjjygtdftyi6021]

To me it's grey. I know it as "ъ"

[@PC_Simo]

@@fyuuredhijgfzregjjygtdftyi6021 So, still very colourless. I also guess you’re Bulgarian, right (or North Macedonian)? Yay for synaesthetes, by the way. 😎👍🏻

[@MekuChanAnime]

Im in the last year of college before I can finally get my title as an English teacher in Chile, but how I wish I could have found this channel sooner! The info it provides is magnificent, and this video alone gave me so much insight to make myself sound more intelligible!

[@WreckItRolfe]

Please do talk about weak forms causing meaningful distinctions. It's something I noticed a number of years ago (though can't think of an example atm).

[@tulsatrash]

It's so neat having things I didn't know, and sometimes things I did know, about the language English being well explained and demonstrated.

[@matthewbartsh9167]

Yes, I'd like to hear lots more about weak forms. They are fascinating. How about talking a bit more about their role in poetry?

[@tedadams1324]

This was really brilliant and extremely fascinating! Thank you so very much for posting!