The importance of "to be" and "to have"

The importance of 

"to be" and "to have"

Why are these 2 verbs so important in English tenses?

The verbs "to be" and "to have" are probably the most important verbs you should know if you are learning English. These verbs are important not only in English language, but also in almost every other language - well, at least in all the other languages I know something about: Portuguese (ser/estar), German (sein/haben), French (être/avoir), etc...

To be and to have are irregular verbs, very irregular verbs!!! 

To start, you should learn the Simple Present and the Simple Past of these 2 verbs:

TO BE

Present Simple

Affirmative                                    Negative                              Interrogative

   I am                                               I am not                                      Am I ?

 You are                                      You are not (aren't)                        Are you ?

  He is                                          He is not (isn't)                               Is he ?

 We are                                       We are not (aren't)                         Are we ?

 You are                                      You are not (aren't)                        Are you ?

They are                                   They are not (aren't)                       Are they ?

Past Simple

Affirmative                                    Negative                              Interrogative

   I was                                        I was not (wasn't)                           Was I ?

 You were                                 You were not (weren't)                   Were you ?

  He was                                    He was not (wasn't)                        Was he ?

 We were                                  We were not (weren't)                    Were we ?

 You were                                 You were not (weren't)                   Were you ?

They were                               They were not (weren't)                 Were they ?

TO HAVE

Present Simple

Affirmative                                    Negative                              Interrogative

   I have                                       I have not (haven't)                        Have I ?

 You have                                  You have not (haven't)                    Have you ?

  He has                                      He has not (hasn't)                         Has he ?

 We have                                   We have not (haven't)                      Have we ?

 You have                                  You have not (haven't)                     Have you ?

They have                                They have not (haven't)                   Have they ?

Past Simple

Affirmative                                    Negative                              Interrogative

   I had                                        I had not (hadn't)                              Had I ?

 You had                                   You had not (hadn't)                         Had you ?

  He had                                    He had not (hadn't)                           Had he ?

 We had                                     We had not (hadn't)                         Had we ?

 You had                                    You had not (hadn't)                        Had you ?

They had                                 They had not (hadn't)                       Had they ?

They are used as auxiliary verbs in the "construction" of some tenses.

See these examples: 

• to be:

Present Continuous: 

Auxiliary ("to be" in the Present) + Present Participle (verb + ing) 

Ex: (to write, wrote, written) - I am writing a text.

Past Continuous:

Auxiliary ("to be" in the Past) + Present Participle (verb + ing) 

Ex: (to go, went, gone) - He was going home.

•  to have:

Present Perfect:

Auxiliary ("to have" in the Present) + Past Participle (3rd form of the verb)

Ex: (to eat, ate, eaten) - Paul has eaten the cake.

Past Perfect:

Auxiliary ("to have" in the Past) + Past Participle (3rd form of the verb)

Ex: (to make, made, made) - We had made the best choice.

•  to be and to have:

Present Perfect Continuous: I have been writing a text.
Past Perfect Continuous: I had been making some changes.


And we could continue... Now, you know: They are really very important!!! Learn the Present Simple and Past Simple of TO BE and TO HAVE and then go to the next step: The Present Simple Tense (ordinary verbs)

The beginning of the verbs odyssey

The beginning of the verbs odyssey!!!

Classes of verbs

There are two classes of verbs in English:

1. 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.
2. 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)

1. 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.