Basic English Grammar: What is an auxiliary verb?

Hi. I'm Jade. What we're talking about today is auxiliary verbs. You don't have to be scared

of that word, "auxiliary", because it's a grammar word. Basically, what they are is

they're helper verbs. They are not the most important verb in the sentence, but they're

important so we know what tense it is. So the reason I made this lesson today is I found

that people who taught English to themselves get to a point where some confusion comes

in because if you're watching videos about learning English and things like that, sometimes,

you're going to hear grammar words that you're not sure about. And then, some confusion can

happen. So if the teacher says, "Find the verb in the sentence", sometimes, what happens

is you just find the verb you know, but you don't realize that it's not the important

verb there. So the whole idea of this lesson is to just teach you a bit of grammar so that

you don't get confused in the future when you're watching videos and things like that.

So yeah. They're helper verbs. They're not the most important verb in the sentence. There

can be more than one of them in a sentence and even still not being the main verb. It's

important because it will help you to recognize the tense, the different tenses of English.

Maybe you don't use all the tenses actively, but it's still good to be able to recognize

them. And also, the most important thing about auxiliary verbs is that it's not helpful for

you to directly translate these words because you'll just get a really confusing, confusing

meaning. And sometimes, that's a mistake people make. So what we're going to do is go through

the different auxiliary verbs in English and look at the different ways that we use them.

So the first one you might not think of as being a helping verb, but it's a good example

of what I mean when you see the verb, and then you try to translate it, and it doesn't

really give you a good meaning; it doesn't really explain what it means well. The best

example of that is "be" in the present and past simple. "She is my boss." What does "be"

mean? What does it -- what does "be" mean? I don't know. I was personally confused about

that even though I didn't need to learn English. And what it's doing is being a linking verb.

In grammar terms, all it's doing is joining subject to object. It doesn't carry its own

meaning, you could say. So in that sense, the verb isn't that important here. It's the

subject and the object that are important.

Anyway. The next examples, they start to get a little more complicated, but not too bad.

Another example of "be", but this time in the continuous sentence -- in the continuous

tenses. "He is sleeping." Let's have a think. What tense is that one? That one is the present

continuous. And this one, "They have been talking." This one is the present perfect

continuous. And what I mean by "auxiliary verb" in these is that they're not the most

important verb in those examples. The most important verb is "sleeping" here. And the

most important verb is "talking" here. In this example, the present perfect continuous

actually has two auxiliaries because you can have more than one auxiliary verb in a sentence.

Next example. "Have" in the perfect tenses. We've got two examples here. We've got, "I've

got a car" and, "They had gone home." What tenses are we talking about here? "I've got

a car." That one is the present perfect. And what about this one? What's this one? This

one is the past perfect. Where's the most important verb? The most important verb is

"get" here. We're using it for possession. It means "to own something, to possess something"

here. In the second example, the most important verb is "go". This is a past participle. It

becomes "gone".

Let's move on to "do" -- our first example of "do". When we're making a negative sentence

in the present simple or the past simple, in the negative form, we use "do". Let's look

at the examples. "I do not like Peter." I'm sorry, Peter. "Do" shows us that we're making

a negative sentence. What's the most important verb? The most important verb is "like". What

about next example? "We didn't go." Again -- naughty me -- no full stop. The most important

verb is "go". There's our negative, this time in a contracted form.

Next example of "do" is in questions. What does "do" mean in a question? "Do" basically

means I'm asking a question now. For example, "Do you like London?" Yes, I do. I like London.

And now, we're talking about "will" as an auxiliary verb. It can mean two things. It

can mean the future tense -- "I will be there later." And "will" shows us we're talking

about the future. But it's not the most important verb. The most important verb is "be". And

our other way -- another meaning of "will", you could say, is to express certainty. So

in this other sentence, "You will like this", we're not talking about a future time. We're

just trying to express certainty about something. But it's not our most important verb because

it's an auxiliary verb. Our most important verb, again, is "like".

Now, talking about modal verbs, we use modal verbs when we're talking about necessity or

the probability of something. And this group of verbs isn't ever the most important verb

in the sentence in terms of grammar. So here's an example. "They might help you." Our most

important verb is "help".

We have other modal verbs as well, but, you know, "might", "may", "should", "must" are

the modal verbs.

And the last auxiliary verb we're going to talk about is "would", and we use "would"

for talking about hypothetical situations. And "hypothetical" means imagined. Not true

situations, but we're using it to think about something in the future imagined or something

in the past imagined. But it's not the most important verb for meaning. The most important

verb for meaning in this sentence is "do".

Now, I realize we've been talking a lot about, "Oh, this auxiliary verb, does this, does

this, does this" -- but let's come back and look at how to find the main verb in the sentence

because that will be useful for you whenever you need to really find the meaning in the

sentence.

Let's have a look at my tips for finding the main verb in the sentence because it's sometimes

really needed to find the main verb so you can understand the full meaning of the sentence.

And just knowing what auxiliaries are, they can help you find the main verb. So we'll

look at the tips, and that should help you not have really bad grammar confusion, hopefully

in the future.

So tip No. 1: We can find the main verb after "is", "was", or "were" in the present or past

continuous. We've got some examples here. "I was eating pizza." That's the past continuous.

And, "They were singing". That's also the past continuous. And the main verb is coming

after "was" and after "were".

Next example. Tip No. 2: after "have" or "has" in the present perfect; or after "had" in

the past perfect. Let's look at examples. "We have got a dog" or "We've got a dog" in

the contracted speech form. After "have" -- because this is the present perfect -- our main verb

is "get", but we're using it in that way that I mentioned to you before, to mean possession.

So all together, this means, "I own a dog" or, "I possess a dog." In the present perfect,

our main verb is here. "Have" is not our most important verb.

Next example. "I had had fun." That maybe looks wrong or weird to you to see "had" together

twice. Sometimes people get confused about it. But it's actually okay to say that. We

have "had", and then, our main verb here is "had". "I had had fun." And that's the past

perfect tense.

Moving on for tip No. 3: We can find the main verb after "have been" or "has been" or after

"had been" in the perfect tense, in the perfect continuous tenses. Let's take a look at some

examples. "They have been lying." In these examples, we have two auxiliaries; we have

two helper verbs. "Had" is a helper verb; "been" is a helper verb; and our main verb

is "lying". It comes from the verb "lie" -- "to tell a lie." Let's look at the next example.

"He had been sleeping." This one is the past perfect continuous. Again, we've got two helper

verbs here, "had", "been" -- helping verbs. Our main verb is "sleeping". That's the most

important one to carry meaning.

Tip No. 4: after the modal verb or after the modal verb followed by other auxiliaries.

And I didn't write you an example there. So let me give you one. "I might have told you

earlier" or, "I might have given you an example." So after the modal verb "might" comes "have

given". "I might have given." We have one auxiliary verb there, "have". "I might have

given you an example on the board."

And our last example -- this is probably an easier way if you can remember this one. After

"been". After "been" is the main verb. "I have been thinking."

So these tips are all useful to find the main verb. This is a general grammar lesson to

mainly just stop that confusion that happens sometimes when you know little bits of grammar,

but it's not all together up there in your head. Knowing and finding the main verb is

really useful -- a lot. It can save you confusion when you're doing exercises and things like

that. It's really helpful. So we're finished for the lesson, but if you want to do a quiz,

you can find the quiz at www.engvid.com. You can answer questions about this. And what

I'd also like you to do is subscribe to this channel. This is my personal channel here

on EngVid. If you like my lessons -- because I make all kinds of other lessons about learning

English, which I really want you to watch if you like watching me. And... I am finished

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bye-bye.