B2 The rhythm of English

English is a language we call a stress-timed language. Perhaps it's unusual, because many other European languages are syllable-timed, especially Latin-based languages, like Spanish and Italian, for example. I'm going to explain and give examples of what a stress-timed language is. I'm also going to read you a poem. It's by a poet called Robert Southey, who was a poet in the 18th century. And he wrote a series of adventure poems, and one of these I'm going to read you today. It is called The ...