the stress to the word “in”. I would say, “No, I put your pen in my desk, not on my desk.” The information conveyed by the preposition “in” has now become the most important word, and so receives the greatest stress. So now he looks in my desk and finds the pen. But he says, “This isn’t my pen. This is your pen.” Although the possessive adjectives “your” and “my” are not normally stressed, here they are very important to convey the message and so they receive the greatest stress. Let’s look at another example. Two people are ordering in a restaurant. One says, “I will have a ham and cheese sandwich and a small bow of soup.” And then the other says, “I will have a ham and egg sandwich, and a large bow of soup. Did you notice how the second person who order stresses the word “egg” and “large”? That’s because those words were different from what came before. This is called contrastive stress.
Today’s daily tip is to make sure to stress the most important words in your speech. Tune in tomorrow for another daily tip.
美语听力与发音技巧 第25期（短句的断句）
Welcome to Daily Tips on learning English. Today’s tip is on the importance of pausing to mark the boundary between phrases or thought groups.
In a previous tip, I mentioned how in long sentences, it is necessary to pause between thought groups. However, relatively short sentences may
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also require pauses to help the listeners organize the stream of sounds correctly. Let’s look at some examples. In the question “what time do you come in in the morning?” It is necessary to pause between the two prepositions “in”. If you pause after the word “come”, “what time do you come / in in the morning?” Then the listeners will be confused, because “come in” and “in the morning” are two separate thought groups. Here’s another similar example. “Look your papers over over the weekend.” You need to pause between the two “over”s to help your listeners organize your words. If you pause somewhere else like “Look your papers / over over the weekend”, nobody will understand you. Sometimes pausing in the wrong place will change the meaning of what you say.
For example, let’s take two sentences. Sentence 1: “I usually eat sushi for lunch.” Sentence 2: “I ate noodles today.” When you put the two sentences together in speech, you must pause slightly between them. “I usually eat sushi for lunch. I ate noodles today.” If you pause after the word “sushi”, the meaning changes. “I usually eat sushi. For lunch I ate noodles today.” So remember to use pauses to group ideas together. If you pause in the middle of ideas, or group pieces of different ideas together, your listeners will have a hard time understanding you. This has been today’s daily tip. Tune in tomorrow for another tip on learning English.
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美语听力与发音技巧 第26期（不定式和动名词）
Welcome to Daily Tips on learning English. Today’s tip is on verbs which are followed by infinitives or gerunds.
Some verbs are followed by infinitives, such as “I plan to go”. “to go” is an infinitive. Some verbs are followed by gerunds, such as “I enjoy teaching English”. “teaching” is a gerund. You cannot say, “I plan going” or “I enjoy to teach English”. Most verbs are followed by either the infinitive or the gerund, and when you learn the verb, you must make sure to memorize which one is used since there is no rule to tell you.
There are only nine verbs which can be followed by either the gerund or the infinitive with no difference in meaning. These verbs are “begin”, “start”, “continue”, “like”, “love”, “hate”, “prefer”, “can’t stand” and “can’t bear”. These verbs can be followed by either the infinitive or the gerund with no difference in meaning. So “I like listening to the radio” and “I like to listen to the radio” both mean the same thing. There are also five verbs which can be followed by either an infinitive or a gerent but which have different meanings depending on whether you use the infinitive or the gerund. These verbs are
“remember”, “forget”, “regret”, “try” and “stop”. Pay special attention when using these verbs, as the meaning of the sentence will change depending on which you choose.
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This has been today’s daily tip on learning English. Tune in tomorrow for another tip.
美语听力与发音技巧 第27期（remember 的用法）
Welcome to Daily Tips on Learning English. Today’s tip is on the difference in meaning between “remember doing something” and “remember to do something”.
Let’s take an example. What’s the difference between “I remember locking the door” and “I remember to lock the door”? Well,
“remember doing something” means you recall doing something you did in the past, and “remember to do something” means to remember to perform a responsibility, duty or task at the proper time.
So, “I remember locking the door” means in the past, I locked the door, and now, I still recall doing it. There’s still a memory in my mind. I haven’t forgotten what I did. On the other hand, “I remember to lock the door” means at the moment I leave my house, I should lock the door. At that moment, I always remember to lock the door. It’s not my habit to forget to lock the door when I leave my house. Therefore, if you are reminding someone to do something in the future, you say, “Remember to turn off the light.” “Remember to feed the dog.” “Remember to say ‘please’.” On the other hand, if you are telling someone about memory you have or don’t have, you say, for example, “I remember closing the door. Who opened it?” “I don’t remember
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