When to Stress Auxiliary Verbs

Teacher: Welcome to daily tips on learning English. Today's tip is on when to stress auxiliary verbs.

Teacher: Although auxiliary verbs are not usually stressed. When we want to strongly emphasize a verb, we stress the auxiliary verb, and if there is no auxiliary verb, we add one. These sentences are call emphatic sentences.

Teacher: For example, compare the sentences, "he's done his homework" and "he has done his homework". Usually we would say "he's done his homework" and the auxiliary verb "has" would not be stressed. But if we want to emphasize the meaning of "has done" we stress the auxiliary verb. "He has done his homework." This is an emphatic sentence. Sentences which don't usually contain an auxiliary verb have an auxiliary verb in emphatic sentences and it's always stressed.

Teacher: Emphatic sentences are usually used after someone has expressed the opposite meaning. For example, "you didn't finish your homework. I did finish my homework." "Maybe she doesn't know how to drive." On the contrary, she does know how to drive. "You don't speak Chinese, do you? I do speak Chinese, I just wanted to give you some practice speaking English?" Did you notice how I said, "I did finish" instead of "I finished" and "she does know" instead of "she knows" and "I do speak" instead of "I speak"? The auxiliary verbs did, does and do were added to make the sentences more emphatic.

Teacher: Be careful though, not to use emphatic sentences unless you have a reason. Don't think that you can not learn the past tense of every verb, and just say "I did eat, I did go" instead of "I ate, and I went". If you do this, your listeners will be confused. Your listener will be thinking "why is that so important, why is he stressing that so much". This is not just another way of saying I ate, and I went. You can only say I did eat and I did go when there is a reason for stressing this.

Teacher: So remember that although auxiliary verbs are not usually stressed. In emphatic sentences they are.

Teacher: This has been today's tip on learning English. Tune in tomorrow for another tip.