Reza: Im an English teacher means you teach the English language...

Im an English history teacher means you teach the history of England.... or perhaps you teach the history of the English language.

Czuch Chuckers: So you mean they don't have secondary meaning?

I'm not talking about the written forms, but the spoken forms. Is there any chance that by changing the stressed word in those sentences, you can change the meaning?

Czuch Chuckers: About my first sentence, I myself have an opinion, but about the second, I think the theory will still work, but how, I don't know!

If you say: I'm an English teacher.

With the 'English' stressed, then it should mean you teach English, just like a geography teacher who teaches geography.

But if you say: I'm an English teacher.

With the word 'teacher' stressed, then it should mean you're from England. Just like you say an American teacher is from the U.S..

Reza: the sentences can mean both .. they are ambiguous

the same with the sentence :
i met my cousin and his friend, who married my sister

if course its more like to have the friend marry your sister .. but the sentence could still mean your cousin married your sister :)

in english you have learn and teach .. in dutch we only have 1 word leren .. i cant find an example right now .. but there are a lot of sentences (which happen in every day speak) in which its not clear if you are teaching someone or being taught :)

Hrqls: I agree that in written form they are both ambiguous. English and all other languages are full of sentences that are not clear in meaning. However, I do believe that there should be a way to distinguish between the meanings of those sentences when they are spoken. I am almost sure of my theory about the first sentence --I am an English teacher.--

If you're a teacher who teaches English, you never put the stress on the word 'teacher' when you're saying that sentence. You somehow say the word 'English' more strongly.

I think a similar way should exist with regards to the second example too. But I'm not sure of the details.

Reza: This is quite an interesting one. You're right about the first bit, "I am an English teacher" does or should change meaning depending which word is stressed more. But, people often don't pick up on that, and need a more detailed sentence to confirm it.
Thats when you would use either of your two sentences below to clarify the meaning.

1)I'm a teacher who teaches English.
2)I'm a teacher from England.


The same can be applied - to a point - to the second sentence.

I'm an English history teacher. means you teach history (I would guess world history) but that you are English.

However, if you wanted to explain that you are a teacher that teaches English history I think the emphasis would be on two words; "I'm an English history teacher.

harley: I think it's hard for you or anyone to be so detailed about this minute points, but I'd appreciate it if you could give it a try.

In the phrase 'English history teacher' you either want to have English and history together as a unit, or history and teacher.

I, based on what I know theoretically about English, think that when English and history are together, since English is an adjective for history, the stress should fall on history. Just like in 'a beautiful girl' which has the stress on girl, not beautiful, normally speaking.

Then, 'English history' is the subject that I'm a teacher of, and therefore, if I want to indicate that I'm a teacher teaching it, I have to stress 'English history' rather than 'teacher.' Just like in 'math teacher' that has the stress on 'math.'

So, if I want to give numbers based on how strongly the words are pronounced to the phrase 'English history teacher,' I do it like this:

English = 2
History = 1
Teacher = 3


1 is the strongest and 3 is the weakest.

Now about the second case, if I consider 'history teacher' as a unit, then 'history' will take the stress. Now in 'English history teacher', since English is the nationality, the part 'history teacher' takes the stress. So, This time, the numbers will be like this:

English = 3
History = 1
Teacher = 2

So based on my theory, in both cases it's the word History that takes the primary stress, but English and teacher take different stresses in different cases.


Do you find any of it true in reality?

Is that at least close to the way you say that sentence in those two different situations?

I know it's a tough question, but you take your time with it.

Thank you

Reza: I think you've got a very good understanding with what you say there, and theoretically you would be absolutely correct. But in reality... well unfortunately its easy to miss stresses on words like that, and misunderstandings often happen over such things, and more explanation is needed.
Some people don't hear the stress on the necessary word, and other people put the stress on the wrong word by mistake.

Reza: Spoken English and written English, like most languages, I would guess, are not always the same. When writing English it is important to be as specific as possible, to clarify, like Harley did in her examples. But you were referring to someone speaking those sentences. I am a native American (not Indian) speaker of English, and when someone says to me, "I am an English teacher", they mean that they teach the English language. Unless they have a thick 'British' accent, then I may wonder exactly what they meant. (they may be saying that they are a teacher from England) Now in England this may be different. So the word which is stressed isn't as important as the context in which it is delivered.

Czuch Chuckers: Its difficult to explain on here without sound, but theres a difference in speech between "I am an English teacher" and "I am an English teacher".

harley: I agree.... but I also think that in either sentence the accent is on the word English, not teacher. If the accent were meant to be that you are a teacher, you would simply say, "I am a teacher". Its likely that if you were in a foreign country , you might be trying point out that you are a teacher from another country. But if I am an American teacher in England and I say " I am an American teacher", you will not be confused as to what I meant. Basically the only time there will be confusion is if a person with an obvious British accent is in America, and says "I am an English teacher". But its likely that he would say "I am an English teacher from England".

Point is that in almost every situation, if someone says "I am an English teacher", they mean that they teach the English language, regardless of which word is accented.

Czuch Chuckers: Yes, I agree to a point. It would be easier to say "I'm English and I'm a teacher" to avoid confusion. But reza was asking about a specific sentence worded in a certain way. And that sentence could have two meanings, depending which word was stressed.

harley: Maybe it is the difference in our variation of your language..... to me, either way, the accent will always be on the word English and never on the word teacher.

Anyway, in America, if you want someone to know that you teach the English language, you will say "I am an English teacher". If you want someone to know that you are from England and that you teach the English language, you will say " I am an English teacher from England". But if you want someone to know that you are a teacher, you will say "I am a teacher". My point being, that if you want someone to know that you are a teacher, you would never say "I am an English teacher" with the accent on the word teacher. So, to conclude (I am very long winded today) the spoken sentence "I am an English teacher" will always mean that you teach the English language, and if you mean something different, you will NOT use the same sentence with a different word accented, you will simply change the phrasing of the words all together!

Czuch Chuckers: I fully understood what you said. I gave that example just because English was the only word I could think of that is both the name of a language and a nationality, beside French. That's why I asked that question.

Maybe it would have been better if I had given 'I'm a French teacher.' as an example.

But when you say you never have the stress on teacher, do you mean that when you want to say you're a teacher from Italy, you still put the stress on Italian in the sentence below?

I'm an Italian teacher.

Harley: Thank you very much for your replies. Sometimes, some questions cannot be answered without the help of native speakers.

Reza: What I am saying is that in America, if you wanted to say that you are a teacher from Italy, you would never say "I am an Italian teacher". We would not have to worry about putting the accent on one word or another to change the meaning of what we are saying. We would simply state it differently.... "I am an Italian teacher" always means that you teach the Italian language, never that you are a teacher from Italy. If you wanted to say you are a teacher from Italy, you would say it different than "I am an Italian teacher".

Czuch Chuckers: Got it. I'll make sure to go there sometime and cause you a lot of trouble then :-)