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 slash 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.

Very different from hear.

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 kk, kk, kk.

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 kk.

I can read very, very fast at regular pace.

I can read a novel every week.

No AA vowel like in can.

But kk, kk, slowed down.

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, I, 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, can versus can.

Can, 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 in my library.

They can be in your library too.

They can, can, can.

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.

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, can, can.

No up-down shape of stress.

No length.

I can do.

All 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.

I can be like her.

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

As I can get.

As I can, can, can.

Reduce.

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 eh like in bed to ih like in sit, get.

But the official pronunciation here is the eh as in bed vowel.

And that is our main verb.

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

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's no question there.

It's reduced.

I can, I can.

Have you noticed before that can comes out can in native speakers?

If so, good ear.

Let me know in the comments.

So short.

A helping verb that shows ability.

Usually unstressed in a sentence, but sometimes, every once in a 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's 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.

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.

Can, can.

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.

I can open up more markets than we have open right now.

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.

Turned out to not be so smart.

But I 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 privileged that he kept it invisible to me for so long.

Now, I wish I could tell you the story ends 30 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 could 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 not figure out.

I could be sitting on my couch.

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 couch.

I could be sitting on my couch.

And all of a sudden, I didn't have to be the expert anymore.

I could now simply plug people into source links.

He can plug people in.

Plug is our main verb there.

Could, the helping verb.

I could, I could, I could.

Flat, unstressed helping verb.

I could now simply plug people in.

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.

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.