1. Measures of speaking in different languages

2. Speaking rate as an illusion

3. Social and personal factors and speaking rate

Speakers of some languages seem to speak faster

than others.

There are three reasons:

Some languages have more complex syllabus structures

than others.

SPANISH ENGLISH

Hombre Man

Casa House

Some languages are Syllable timed and others stress

timed

• Syllable timed languages: Spanish, French, Italian

• Stress timed languages: English, German

Some languages have some characteristics using higher and

lower speaking rates than others languages in a particular

social situations