Speaking with Confidence? [Unlock the Power of Helping Verbs]

Helping verbs are key to speaking with confidence in American English. let’s get busy building your confidence so you can speak English comfortably and with proficiency.

Tagged With: speaking English   YouTube blocked? Click here to see the video.

Video Transcript:

What is a helping verb and how does it factor into your accents when you’re speaking American English?

Today I’m going to make sure you know what to do with helping verbs so you can have the most natural easiest to understand American accent possible.

I’m Rachel and I’ve been teaching the American accent on YouTube for over 15 years. Go to rachelsenglish.com/free to get my free course, The Top Three Ways to Master the American Accent.

How does a helping verb fit into the rhythm of American English? In English we have long stressed syllables and short unstressed syllables and usually verbs are stressed. In fact, we recently made a video on the best clearest way to stress verbs. Link for that will be in the video description.

Verbs, they’re stressed they’re longer but not helping verbs. Have you ever heard of a helping verb before? Maybe you’ve heard the more fancy name, auxiliary, pronounced with a G and a Z, auxiliary. This word means additional.

The airplane has auxiliary fuel tanks so the main tanks and then additional auxiliary tanks and yes, I find that word pretty hard to pronounce so let’s just stick with helping verbs.

A helping verb is not the main verb. For example, I can hear you. Hear is my main verb, it’s stressed, I can hear you, hear you. Can is our helping verb. It’s not stressed. In fact it’s reduced, it’s said very, very quickly. I can hear you. Can, can. Very different from hear, can hear, can. Short. Hear, long. You want that different quality of stressed and unstressed syllables when speaking English. It might feel strange to make the word can, can but that is natural spoken English. So is can a helping verb? Yes, but not always. Sometimes, it’s the only verb so it can’t be a helping verb.

Who can come early to help set up? I can. Can. Fully pronounced, it’s the only verb. I can-not, I can.

There are several types of helping verbs. Today, we’ll focus on modal verbs. We’ll study lots of real life examples so that you get the stress pattern perfectly every time. Modal verbs show possibility, like might or may. Intent like will. Ability like can, the word we’ve already studied. Necessity, should or must.

For example, I read a novel every week. I can read a novel every week the first sentence is something I do. every week I read a novel. the second sentence is about my ability. I have the ability to read a novel every week. I have that much free time. I have that much of a love for novels. I might not read one every week but I can. I could if I wanted to. Let’s use a voice analysis software to see what’s going on with the voice.

First let’s play the sentence with can then the sentence without can.

I can read a novel every week.

I read a novel every week.

They look pretty much the same length because can is [kən]. Now, to try to hear it better, reductions are so hard to isolate by themselves because of how fast they are. Let’s go ahead and listen in slow motion.

I can read a novel every week.

So even in slow motion, we don’t hear can. We hear can, I can read, very, very fast at regular pace.

I can read a novel every week.

No ae vowel like in can but [kən], slowed down.

I can read a—

[kən]

So this reduction, you can think of it as having no vowel. Just the k sound and the n sound, it’s very fast, it’s so different from I can, can, can.

Now let’s compare this when can is not reduced, when it’s the only verb in the sentence.

I can

Back here, when we compared two sentences, one with the can reduction couldn’t really see the difference. Let’s listen to I can in slow motion.

I can.

I can. Very different from I can, I [kən] versus kaen, the reduction.

Now let’s look at this word in some other videos. Today we’ll study can, could, and should this way.

They are there in my house they’re on my library. They can be in your library too.

They can, [kən]. So fast, nice reduction, that’s because be is our stressed verb so can is very short. They can be.

They can be in your library too.

It’s not my place to criticize, all I can do is try and draw attention to the choices that we’re making that aren’t serving us well.

All I can do. Do is our main verb there, it has the up down shape of stress. Can, [kən], no up down shape of stress no length, I can do.

All I can do–

To look at a CEO on television say, “I can be like her” or “He looks like me.”

I can be like her. Again, be is our main verb I can be, it has the up down shape of stress, the length and can is so short.

I can be like her.

Okay, and I’ve been practicing and I’m as close to perfect as I can get. can

As I can get. As I can, [kən], reduced. The word get is our main verb here, it has the length, the up down shape of stress. Now he does change his vowel a little bit from E like in bed to I like can sit, get. But the official pronunciation here is the e as in bed vowel and that is our main verb.

And I’m as close to perfect as I can get.

And I just can’t wait to spend more time in the galleries. I feel so lucky to have five almost six months to have your work on view so I can kind of take it in.

Take is our main verb here. He’s put kind of between our helping verb and our main verb. But can, there is no question there it’s reduced, I can, I [kən].

Have you noticed before that can comes out [kən] in native speakers? If so, good ear. Let me know in the comments.

[kən]. So short. A helping verb that shows ability. Usually, unstressed in a sentence but sometimes, every once in while it’s stressed. This is usually used in connection with can’t, I can’t come tomorrow but I can come on Thursday. Showing contrast. Let’s look at an example like this:

I can’t do that.

But I can do this!

And we need that immediately. And I say to them well I can’t get that for you. But what I can do is make—

But what I can do. Okay, so here is an exception: He is stressing the word can. I can’t do this but I can do that. So now we hear the full pronunciation.

Most of the time however, can is reduced as a helping verb.

But what I can do—

But what I can do is make the current situation better for American workers and American businesses that are trying to export there. I can open up more markets than we have open right now.

I can open up. Now here, he hasn’t stressed can. I can open, [kən]. Open is our main verb, it has the up down shape of stress and the word can is said very quickly, can. I can open.

I can open up more markets—

than we have open right now, uh so that American farmers can sell their goods there. Another time, can is the helping verb and it is reduced. Sell is our main verb. Can sell, can sell. It’s not can sell, can sell.

American farmers can sell their goods there. American farmers can sell their goods there.

Let’s look at the helping word could. Again, this shows ability or possibility, I could, I may, I might.

What I’ll do is I’ll find one person I thought this was so genius, it turned out to not be so smart. But I’d find one person who had all the answers. So I wrote a letter. The smartest person I could think of was my grandfather.

I could think of, could think, think, our up down shape of stress, more length, could our helping verb much faster, the pitch is flat, much shorter, I could think.

The smartest person I could think of was my grandfather.

The smartest person I could think of—

And it had been privilege that had kept it invisible to me for so long. Now I wish I could tell you the story ends 30 years years ago in that little discussion group,

I could tell you. I wish I could tell you. Tell, that’s our main verb could, could, could, could, this little helping verb so short.

Now I wish I could tell you the story ends—

Now I wish I could tell you—

It took me years to figure out what actually happened and I couldn’t not figure out how he did that. It sounded like magic you know?

Here, could is a little bit longer, but it’s still flat, I could not figure out. Figure out is a two-part verb, a phrasal verb and that is the main verb here with the stress. Out, it has the up down shape of stress. Could, flat. That’s our helping verb.

I could not figure out—

I could be sitting on my couch in—

I could be sitting be sitting is our verb there, our main verb, could is our helping verb and it’s much faster. I could, I could, I could.

I could be sitting on my—

And all of a sudden I didn’t have to be the expert anymore, I could now simply plug people into Sourcelinks—

He can plug people in. Plug is our main verb there. Could the helping verb. I could, I could, I could, uh, flat unstressed helping verb.

I could now simply plug people in—

I wish I could say this is the only way our species is hurting the deep reefs but it’s not.

I wish I could say. Say. Our main verb could, our helping verb, I could, could, could. Flat and fast.

I wish I could say—

Who taught me how to work with big brushes, big, big kind of spray machines that I could actually work with larger scale. Work is our main verb here. That I could actually work with. Work, could, could, I could, could, could, that flat helping verb, our unstressed helping verb. In some cases as you’ve noticed, I’ll drop the D in the could reduction but not when the next word begins with a vowel or diphthong like it does here. Could actually. The D makes a light flap against the roof of the mouth. Could actually [flap], could actually.

That I could actually work with—

In these cases, we don’t have the length we don’t have the up down shape of stress. These are helping verbs and they’re unstressed in the sentence. And finally, should. You should. I actually hate this phrase. I’m like don’t tell me what I should do. Should is a suggestion, it’s advice. You should exercise more. He should be more organized.

It’s just making up the dash of my life. Do you know the poem The Dash? If you haven’t read it you should Google it.

You should Google it. You should, should, should. The word should said very quickly here, you should Google. Google is our main verb, should is the helping verb. It’s unstressed, it doesn’t have its own up down shape of stress, it doesn’t have length, you should, you should. Sometimes we even drop that D.  Should Google it, should Google it.

If you haven’t read it you should Google it, you should Google it.

And then build your house right on top of it and don’t budge from it. And if you should someday, somehow get vaulted out of your home.

Get vaulted. That is our main verb there, the should is a helping verb and it said quickly. You should, should, should, should, and if you should, and if you should someday.

And if you should someday somehow

Just own it. You should be proud of it.

You should be proud of it. To be proud, this is our main verb here. Should is just the helping verb and I do hear that the D is dropped. You should, should, should, should be, should be proud.

You should be proud of it.

We all know you should take a sick day or a mental health day or—

You should take. Take, our main verb. Should, helping verb, so fast.

You should take a sick day,

But I thought you know, telling a monk you’re against empathy but he said, “Oh, empathy, of course you should be against empathy.” And he began to tell me about his research.

To be, this is our main verb. To be against something, but he’s adding the helping verb, should, but it’s not should be against, but it’s should, should, you should, you should, you should be against. That helping verb unstressed quality.

Of course you should be against empathy.

Log base 2 of seven, I mean it looks a lot like what we were doing before and you should try to rearrange it the same way.

You should try. Try is our main verb with the length, with the up down shape of stress and should doesn’t have that, should, you should you, should. It has that unstressed quality of a helping verb.

And you should try—

And right around this time, a good friend of mine said, “Sheena you should read the success principles by Jack Canfield.”

You should read. You should, should, should. Hear how that’s flat? Read has the up down shape of stress. Read is our main verb and should just a little helping verb here.

You should read—

I hope you’ve enjoyed this video, I absolutely love teaching about the stress and music of spoken American English. Keep your learning going now with this video and don’t forget subscribe with notifications on, I absolutely love being your English teacher. That’s it and thanks so much for using Rachel’s English.

 Video: