In English, unstressed syllables are much weaker and shorter than stressed syllables, and their vowels are often phonetically reduced (pronounced as the rather indistinct schwa — "uh" — rather than fully sounded). Moreover auditors tend to perceive word stresses to fall at equal intervals in time, making English a "perceptually" "stress-timed" language; it "seems" that the same amount of time occurs between stresses. So the conventional patterns of accentual and accentual-syllabic English verse are perceived as regularly rhythmic, whereas to the listener, syllabic verse generally is not distinguishable from free verse.