It is, of course, no such thing different languages have different stress patterns, and what seems natural is just convention, in the same way that grammar is. Native speakers tend to think of this pattern as 'natural'. This holds true regardless of whether said sequence comprises:Īll spoken English exhibits this pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables. When any sequence of English words is spoken or read out loud, certain syllables are accentuated (emphasized) by being spoken relatively louder and/or being articulated more distinctly, while others are unstressed by being spoken relatively softer and/or slurred.
But if you're not confident of your ear, there are certain techniques you can use to help you identify how a line scans.įirst, it's necessary to understand how stress works in English. As the comments to your question have noted, the most reliable way to figure out whether a given line is iambic pentameter is to sound it out.
