The beginning of the verbs odyssey!!!
Classes of verbs
There are two classes of verbs in English:
- The auxiliary verbs (auxiliaries): to be, to have, to do; can, could, may, might, must, ought, shall, should, will, would; to need, to dare and used.
- All other verbs, which we may call ordinary verbs:
to
work to sing to play
- be, have, do, need and dare have infinitives and participles like ordinary verbs, but can, could, may, might, must, ought, shall, should, will and would have neither infinitives nor participles and therefore have only a restricted number of forms.
But before studying auxiliaries it may be helpful to consider ordinary verbs, most of whose tenses are formed with auxiliaries.
The 3 verb forms
The first thing to consider when you study English verbs is that there are 3 verb forms you should know. You may find many lists of English verbs on the Internet (usually lists of irregular verbs...) which mention these 3 verb forms. You may also click here to see MY REGULAR AND IRREGULAR VERBS LIST.
Why are they so useful?
Well,... these 3 verb forms are all you need to know to "build" all verb tenses. So, let's see:
Example: to go, went, gone (Irregular verb)
- to go is the infinitive form.
- (1st form) go is the form of the Present Simple. (It is also the bare infinitive, which means the verb "to go" without the "to": it is used for the Future Simple and Conditional Simple)
- (2nd form) went is the form of the Past Simple.
- (3rd form) gone is the Past Participle. (It is not used by itself. It is used in Perfect tenses like the Present Perfect and the Past Perfect)
- It is also important that you know that REGULAR VERBS have 3 verb forms too, but the 2nd and 3rd verb forms are just the verb with a regular ending: -ed
- Example: to work, -ed, -ed (which means: to work, worked, worked)
- Example: to decide, -d, -d (which means: to decide, decided, decided)
If you know these 3 verb forms, you are ready to go to the next step and see the importance of the verbs to be and to have.
No comments:
Post a Comment