Podcast 108 B2 - More advanced uses of auxiliaries

Auxiliaries have various uses

Auxiliaries are not intuitive, are they? When students learn English, it takes quite a long while before they can make questions and negatives correctly with auxiliaries do and did, for example. Did it take you very long? Perhaps it didn't. It probably depends on your mother tongue. As a learner of B2 English, you'll soon realise that auxiliaries are needed for other situations too. You did know that, didn't you? Keep listening and find out the other uses of auxiliaries. Here we go...

Besides questions and negatives, it's true that short answers are usually taught in schools quite early in your English language classes. Your teacher may say to you 'Don't just say 'yes' or 'no'! Repeat the auxiliary.' So when she says,

B2 auxiliaries travelling man

Do you like travelling?

She wants you to reply,

Yes, I do.' 'No, I don't.

At B2 level, you could extend that knowledge and use the auxiliary so you don't repeat things you're talking about.

I love travelling but my boyfriend doesn't.

or,

I love going to the cinema and my boyfriend does too.

The 'does' in 'my boyfriend does too' is a way not to repeat 'my boyfriend likes going to the cinema too'.

Neither, nor, so and auxiliary verbs

As I said before, it's not usually intuitive for learners of English. Neither is this alternative for saying the same thing intuitive.

I really enjoy going to discos and so does my boyfriend.

or,

I don't want to move house and neither/nor does my boyfriend.

In those examples, we have an inversion - the auxiliary comes before the noun: 'so does my boyfriend', 'neither/nor does my boyfriend'. The rule is then, use 'so' with a positive verb and 'neither' or 'nor' with a negative verb.

It's important to be aware of the auxiliary required, isn't it? And this is the difficult thing for learners and what native speakers do without thinking about it. Here are some examples:

I've been to France and so has my wife.
I'd like to study something different and so would Mary.
I won't do it and neither/nor will John.
I didn't know the answer and neither/nor did she.

It's the same problem with question tags. Many students try to avoid them by replacing the question tag with 'yes?', 'no?'.

You're coming to the dinner too, yes?
You don't like that painting, no?

instead of,

You're coming to the dinner too, aren't you?
You don't like that painting, do you?

Auxiliaries for confirming what we hear

A nice thing to add to your speaking exam technique is to echo what your partner says by using an auxiliary. It shows you're listening to what your partner is saying and makes your English sound quite native-like. This is especially true for part three of the Cambridge speaking exam at B2 level, where both candidates have to carry out a task together. Here's a brief example:

'I think most schoolchildren would like to go on this excursion to the zoo.'
'Do you?'
'Yes. All children like animals. I don't think the museum trip is a good idea though.'
'Don't you? Why not?'
'It's a bit boring, don't you think so?'
'Yes, I do...'

But remember that this 'do you?' and 'don't you?' are not true questions. They are a confirmation of what the speaker has just heard.

Auxiliaries for emphasis

There's another use of the auxiliary that we can bring in to our conversations when we want to put emphasis on something or contradict what somebody has just said. Again, we must use the correct auxiliary here. For example, we can say,

'You didn't lock the front door, did you?'
'Yes, I did lock it. I remember locking it.'

'Mary isn't coming. John told me this morning.'
'She is coming! She just telephoned me to confirm.'

Notice how in that second example 'she is coming' we don't contract it to 'she's coming'. We put lots of stress on the word 'is' - 'she is coming!' In the first example, 'I did lock it', we actually bring in the auxiliary 'did' to place emphasis on the action - 'I did lock it!'

Here is an extract from my book, The Tudor Conspiracy. It's a dialogue between the main characters in the story, Isabel and Philip. Listen for the use of auxiliary verbs here. There are uses that you know well, for example, to make questions and negatives but can you identify the uses of the auxiliary verb to put lots of emphasis on the action? I'll give you a clue. The auxiliary you should listen for is auxiliary 'did'. Come over to Practising English, podcast 108 to see the aud¡o script and find out the answers.* Here we go...

The Tudor Conspiracy (extract for auxiliary uses)

B2 Tudor Conspiracy

'Are you all right?' he said. 'I was looking for you. I knocked on your door about five minutes ago. There was no reply. I went downstairs to look for you.'

Isabel's eyes widened. 'Did she see you?' she asked.

'Who?'

'That Jane woman!' said Isabel.

'What? Why should she?' A pause. 'Isabel, don't worry about her. That's over. We're safe here for now.' Then he went on 'Look, I've been thinking. I think we should go to the police. We…'

'She was here,' interrupted Isabel.

'She was here?'

'She's just left, Philip!' said Isabel. 'You were lucky she didn't see you! Come in. Close the door.' She walked back to the sofa and sat down. Philip followed and sat down next to her. His face was serious. Isabel's face, however, was full of triumph, and ideas began to form in her head.

'She's staying in the room next to mine – number 23. I left my door open and I saw her leave, so I crossed over onto her balcony. She'd left the balcony window open. I got into her bedroom…'

'You did what?' Philip's mouth opened in total horror.

'I climbed across from my balcony to hers,' said Isabel. 'There's a tree thing between…'

'You did that?'

'I did,' said Isabel.

'You're crazy! She could have… she could have come back!' said Philip.

'She did come back,' said Isabel nodding and now smiling to see the expression on Philip's face.

'She did? She came back while you were in the room?' Philip lifted his hand to his head anticipating terrible events...

So, what happened to Isabel? You can find out if you listen to my book The Tudor Conspiracy here at Practising English dot com and you can buy the book or the digital The Tudor Conspiracy by M.A. Bilbrough on any Amazon platform.

That's all from me for today. Until next time. Good bye!

*The uses of 'did' for emphasis is shown in bold type.