Stress on certain parts of a sentence.

M. M.A2Kwiziq Q&A regular contributor

In a lot of the French sentences on Kwiziq, the stress sounds like it is on an odd part of the sentence and I can't figure out the pattern. For example, in "Tu te laves les mains?" above, the word laves is stressed in the recording. And the voice doesn't rise at the end like I would expect for a question. Is that how the question would really be spoken in French? Is there a section here that explains which parts of a sentence are normally stressed?

This question relates to:French lesson "Conjugate reflexive verb se laver in the present tense in French (Le Présent)"

Asked 6 years ago

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CécileNative French expert teacher in KwiziqCorrect answer

Hi Melisa,

French is a syllable-timed language, where syllables take roughly the same amount of time to pronounce.

In the sentence you mention your voice would rise at the end to indicate it is not a statement but a question.

Hope this helps!

Like05 years ago

M. M. asked:

Stress on certain parts of a sentence.

In a lot of the French sentences on Kwiziq, the stress sounds like it is on an odd part of the sentence and I can't figure out the pattern. For example, in "Tu te laves les mains?" above, the word laves is stressed in the recording. And the voice doesn't rise at the end like I would expect for a question. Is that how the question would really be spoken in French? Is there a section here that explains which parts of a sentence are normally stressed?

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