Modals in English - MUST

There must be something I could watch…must be…oh hi, James.

I was just looking at the paper, because we have a festival in Toronto called TIFF, Toronto

International Film Festival, something like that, happens every year and they always have

these great movies.

But I usually find it difficult to find something and this year I thought I must go and see

the festival and there must be something I could watch and if I miss it, I must not miss

it this year.

That's what I was thinking.

And when I thought of that, I thought of you.

That's right, I thought of you, because I thought you probably want to know why we

use must in so many different ways, and they're different.

So I came up with something…well, let's talk to Mr. E, he came up with something.

He said, "That must be a new watch, because you haven't been wearing one."

Hmm, what do we mean?

Well, let's look over here…must.

Must actually isn't what you think it is.

Must means this…dot U, dot S, dot T. Huh, well, it's…actually, I don't understand…hold

on a second.

Must, and then we put this here.

Must actually, to me, is a big sentence of "must be understood as a statement of truth."

When we say "must," someone's trying to tell you something is true, okay?

Now, from that "something is true" comes all of this information.

Let me give you the first one.

Let's look at number one.

Logical conclusion.

Well, "must be understood as a statement of truth."

Now we did "must," if you noticed.

Now if we look at "be," we say, because we usually say in English, "must be."

Mr. E must be wearing a new watch, because I've never seen it before.

An example would be this, because "be" here stands for "believe."

So I must understand something as a statement of truth, and I believe it's true.

Cool?

Alright.

So we go for our first example.

So we've got "believe," and I would say, "It must be a new watch."

Why did I say that?

Number one, I have not seen it before.

Okay?

That's number one.

Number two, okay, well, it doesn't have to be new, I haven't seen it before.

But he doesn't have a watch.

So if I know he doesn't have a watch, and I have not seen this watch before, I would

say -- that's very fancy English for "therefore," see, "therefore," okay?

Okay?

It must be new.

So what I'm saying here is, fact one, I've never seen it before.

Fact two, he doesn't own a watch.

So conclusion, or logical conclusion, it must be a new watch.

Cool?

Alright.

And that comes from, remember what I said?

Must be understood as a statement of truth.

Now here's the key thing.

Just because I've done this, and in this case, it might be true, it might not be.

Maybe Mr. E borrowed the watch from his brother, right?

Maybe he borrowed it, he goes, "That's cool, can I borrow it for today?"

It's not new, it's an old watch, and he still doesn't have a watch.

But it's only true I haven't seen it before.

That doesn't necessarily make it true, okay?

So when we say it is what I believe to be true, and that's what you must understand

here.

And that's the key to "must be."

The key is "believe," and that's why we get a logical conclusion.

If the facts are true, then this must be true.

Now this is true in the present tense.

Now we can also talk about this in the future tense, like "you must be."

So we can talk about it in the future sense, "You must be leaving soon."

Why?

Because you have to be home by 8 o'clock, it's now 7.30, it's also getting dark,

and you have to drive, so you must be leaving soon, right?

Logical conclusion.

Now if I want to say something about it in the past, I have to change it just so slightly.

Now I want to use this term, if I want to say this in the past, okay?

So we did "future," I just showed that, but if I want to say "past," I'm going

to do something here.

I'm going to add "have," okay?

I've talked about this before in other lessons, so you might want to go check them out, where

I talk about "have" and its modal use, or its perfect use.

"Have" is usually a connector, it connects things, that's what I say "have" means.

In this case, "you must have been."

So by adding "have," I have to use a postparticiple, verb in its postparticiple form.

That tells me it's in the past.

So if I say, "You must have been tired yesterday," okay?

I'm actually saying, "I believe," because that's good, "must have," "in the

past, yesterday, you were tired."

So, "You must have been tired yesterday."

Now once again, I could do something like, "Because you worked a lot, you didn't

eat a lot, and you didn't get any sleep, therefore, you must have been tired yesterday,

not today."

Cool?

All right.

So we've shown how we can use "must be" to show something is what someone believes

to be true in the past, in the present, and in the future.

Now, you're probably thinking, "Well, that's all nice, but why do sometimes people

say, 'You must not be'?"

It's still what I think is true, but we call it sort of like a negative proof.

What do I mean by negative proof?

So let's add that in there, okay?

So I'm still going to say it's "believe."

You still believe something, even though you say "not," because normally you say

"not," you mean "no."

Okay?

Normally that's what happens.

You say "not," "no."

But it's a negative proof, to give you an example.

I want to put that, because that's in "past."

Okay.

Let's go like this for you.

Okay, Mr. E, okay, has no job.

Okay?

Mr. E has no money.

And you might say, "Therefore, Mr. E must not be happy."

Okay?

Okay?

So in this case, we're saying it's a negative proof, saying, "Yes, I believe something

is true, but in a negative sense, not a positive sense."

Right?

Because otherwise, I'd have to say, "Mr. E must be unhappy," which is just flipping

this position of the adjective.

Okay?

So that's why you hear "must not be."

It's basically a strong belief in something, right?

But in a negative way of saying it.

Cool.

So we've done the positive, "must be."

We've done the negative, "must not be."

We've done the past, "must have been."

So why don't we look down to here?

As I said to you, it's funny how we go from something you believe to something that's

absolutely necessary, necessity.

Okay?

So then we go from here, the next step was go, "must."

Remember what we said?

"Must be understood as something, as a statement of truth."

Right?

We look at this.

Strong recommendation.

By the way, something before I forget.

When we say "must" here, I said we always say "must be."

That's not necessarily true.

That's not necessarily true.

Because sometimes when we say that, I don't mean something "must be."

I can say, "must like," for instance.

"Must like."

And what I mean by that is, you must like ice cream because you buy it all the time.

You offer it to your friends, and it's always in your house.

You must like ice cream.

In this case, it's still "believe," but I'm just going straight here because something

must be a statement of truth.

And I don't have to put "believe."

It's understood to be believed.

Okay?

So sometimes when you see it like that, you have to look for context because context is

everything.

And in this case, we're saying, "I believe still."

All right?

Cool.

Next one.

A strong recommendation.

Well, we told what "must" is here, and we're going to look at strong recommendation.

What would that mean?

Well, once you believe something's true, then you might recommend it to somebody.

And this is going to be interesting because here, you notice I have "must."

If you notice here, I have "should" because in North America, we usually say when

something's right or the best thing to do, you should do it.

In England and Canada, we also say, "You must do it."

But we mean it as a strong recommendation.

For instance, ladies, you're going out.

You see some beautiful shoes.

Not mine.

They don't smell like roses.

But, you know, you get the drift, and I don't mean the scent of my shoe.

Okay?

Now, you see those shoes, and you say to your best friend, of course, your girlfriend,

"Girl, you see those shoes?

You must buy them!"

Okay?

"Must buy them."

Okay?

Now, when we're saying that, basically, you're saying, "Hey, look.

I believe this is a good deal."

It's assumed--that's why we don't put the "b" on the end--it's assumed you understand

the logic behind it.

You see the price.

You see the normal price.

So, you go, "Hmm, I believe this is a good price, and I ought to do it or I should do

it now."

"Should."

Cool?

Now, when we say this, it can--like, "You must go to see this movie.

It's amazing."

"Must."

That's our strong recommendation for the movie, right?

And that's going to be a future sense, because you're not going to see the movie now.

I know you're not, because I'm telling you about it, but maybe in five minutes.

But when I say, "You must buy those shoes," I want you to do it now.

Buy them now, because it's a good deal now.

Okay?

And remember, in North America, we can also say, "Should."

You should buy it, or you should see the movie.

And that's our strong recommendation for the best thing to do.

Cool?

Brilliant.

Now, see, I could say this.

I could say this as well.

But you know what the truth of the matter is?

When you say, "You must buy them," there's more of an immediacy to it.

There's more of a, "You've got to do it.

You've got to do it now.

Do it immediately, as soon as you can."

When you should, it's like, "I want to pontificate."

Pontificate is a really fancy word for, "Think about it."

But when someone says, "Must," "Do it.

Do it now."

So it's like, "Must."

Powerful.

All right?

Cool?

Great.

We've gone from, "It's logical, Captain."

Star Trek.

It's just logical.

Makes sense.

To, "I strongly recommend it."

The next one, we're going to go to necessity and prohibition.

They're like two sides of a coin.

Okay?

If Mr. E was a coin, one side would be the head, and one side would be the tail.

Get it?

Heads and tail.

Why?

Because when something's a necessity, sometimes the actual opposite would be a prohibition.

"You must do this," and, "You must not do this."

For instance, "You must study," or, "You must not fail to study."

Right?

Opposite sides of the coin.

One is saying, "Do not forget to do this."

And this is saying, "You must act now."

Okay?

Just opposite sides.

But what's interesting about it is this.

Okay?

You notice this one has a past tense.

If you want to do past tense for this one, it's only for necessity.

There is no past tense for prohibition.

What am I talking about?

Well, let's go look for necessity.

These three go right in line.

First you make, "It's logical."

Then you say, "I recommend it."

And then afterwards you say, "You know what? Just do it."

Okay?

So we say, "You must."

So if Ezekiel's thinking about this, "You must."

Okay?

Someone's going to kill you, you must kill him first.

Okay?

Because if you don't kill him first, he'll kill you.

It's necessity.

You have no choice.

You have no choice.

You can't say it like, "Had to kill him."

That is, "I must have."

Not in this sense.

In this case, it must, "must."

Absolutely.

If you don't do it, you're dead.

In English, if we want to say the past,

the only way to do that, it's funny enough, is to change it to, "Had to."

"I had to do it."

"You have to do it."

Or, "Had to do it."

Okay?

Prohibition, on the other hand, is when we say, "Must not."

You're not allowed to.

You have no permission.

You cannot do it.

Okay?

That's the prohibition.

And in saying that, we usually use this for near future.

"You must not forget to take your medicine."

"You must not."

So we'll put that one up there.

Okay?

"You must not--sorry--not forget."

Right?

Now, that's near future.

Generally, we use it for near future.

Another way of saying that would be, "Have to."

Now, I think I've gone on for a long time, and I must not take you any longer.

So what I want you to do is go to--

I'll put it on the board.

I must put it on the board for you, right?

Okay.

Because I think it's the best thing to do, right?

Okay.

Now, you mustn't forget this email address.

That's email?

No, sorry.

You must forget that.

Remember the website, which is www.engvid.com.

Oh, God.

I must remember I've got to put the dot here.

Some people forget, right?

So, logical conclusion.

I must put the dot.

Otherwise, people won't, and they won't get to the website.

Strong recommendation.

You must come see me and some other videos and other teachers on the site.

If you need to improve your English, then you must study what we're offering.

And you must not forget what I'm telling you.

See?

All of the musts used together.

There's your tree.

Try and remember.

Go do the quiz.

And I will be happy to see you now, right?

Because you must go immediately.

See you.

EngVid.