Hello, welcome to the English Language Club.
What are auxiliary verbs? They are sometimes called helping verb but
they can seem complicated and illogical. In this video, we are going to see that
Auxiliary verbs are actually the most important thing for getting tense right.
If you really want to improve your English then make sure you hit the like button
and subscribe to the channel so that you don’t miss future videos.
Also stay tuned at the end of this video because we have written a course called Inside English
which is designed to help you to make tense make sense.
There are a lot of things that make tenses seem complicated like rules, exceptions and irregular
verbs but underneath all that there is a logic and that is what we focus on in Inside English.
So keep watching for more about that. But for now. Let's get back to the video.
By itself, a main verb tells us what action is happening.
Tense is a way of communicating extra information, like when that action is happening.
So by definition, it makes what we are saying more complicated, by adding information.
For most people, tense is one of the most difficult parts of learning English.
When people learn English there is often too much emphasis on the form of the main verb.
This leads to confusion because it is actually the auxiliary verb that tells us more about tense.
This is the third big idea of our course Inside English.
That auxiliary verbs are the most important thing to get tense right.
Let’s look at some examples. Let’s say someone asks you, “Do you take English classes?”
You could answer that question in several different past and present tenses.
I did take English classes. I do take English classes.
I was taking English classes. I am taking English classes.
I had taken English classes. I have taken English classes.
Now let’s look at the pattern here. There are three different forms of the verb,
take, taking and taken, and lots of different auxiliary verbs, did, do am, was had and have.
But let’s take away the main verb and the rest of the sentence for a moment.
Is just the auxiliary verb enough to figure out what tense each of these sentences uses?
Yes, it is! To know the tense we need to know two things, the time of action,
past present and future and the type of action. Which could be , simple, continuous, perfect.
There are three different auxiliary verbs here:
do, be, and have. One for each of the different “types of action”.
The verb “Do” so, “do” and “did” - go with the simple type of action.
The verb “Be” so, “was” and “am” - go with the continuous type of action. And
The verb “Have” so, “had” and “have” - go with the perfect type of action.
Because there is one auxiliary verb for each different “type of action” we
know the type of action just by looking at the auxiliary verb.
So what about time of action? Can we see what time of action is used based on the auxiliary verb?
Yes, we can! In the past tenses, the auxiliary verb
uses its past form, so “Do” becomes “did.” “Be” becomes “Was” or “Were.” “Have” becomes “had.”
So. Yes we normally change the auxiliary verb, NOT the main verb to make tense. Now, this can be confusing because sometimes
with simple tenses we don’t actually say the auxiliary verb. But this only happens in simple tenses.
So if this is the case we know it is a simple tense and then we can just look at the main verb to
know if it is past or present. But this is really just an irregularity of the past and
present simple tenses. The problem is that because these tenses are very common it can
seem like there is no logic to how tenses work but there is and it is all about the auxiliary verbs.
So what is the tense for these sentences? “I did take English classes.” The auxiliary
verb is “did” which is the verb “do”, so it's the simple tense. And the time of
action is past. Because it is the past form, “did” rather than “do”. So the tense is… Past simple.
“I do take English classes.” It’s ‘do’ again so it is simple again
and this time it is present. So Present Simple.
“I was taking English classes.” Now the auxiliary verb is from the verb “to be” so the type of action
is continuous. And “was” is a past form of “be” so the tense is Past Continuous.
“I am taking English classes.” Would be is Present Continuous.
Because "am" is a present form of the verb "to be".
In “I had taken English classes.”, “had” is from “have” so its the Perfect type of action.
And “had” is a past so it's Past perfect. and finally “I have taken English classes.”
Have makes it Perfect again and it is Present so it is Present perfect.
So you can see that the Auxiliary verbs are the most important thing to get tense right.
The entire tense of a verb can be determined just from its auxiliary verb.
Which auxiliary verb you use tells you which “type of action”
it is and the form of the auxiliary verb shows the “time of action”.
But look, you can’t tell the tense just by looking at the form of the main verb.
The ing form can also be used to make a gerund which is not really a verb
like in the sentence, ‘I like playing football’. The verb in that sentence is ‘like’ not play.
The past participle is used in perfect tenses but it is also used to form the passive voice, like in
the sentence ‘My car was taken.’ This sentence is not a perfect tense, it is in passive voice.
With simple tenses it is a little confusing because we do often miss out the auxiliary verb
And then the past tense form of the main verb is more important .
But that is really an irregularity of the simple tenses.
This structure with the auxiliary verb is still the case.
It is just that we don't need to say the auxiliary verb and that is how the tense is working.
So paying too much attention to the main
verb can’t tell us the tense of a sentence. English puts most of the information about tense
in the auxiliary verbs. And that is where your focus should be.
We have written a course called Inside English and it goes a little deeper into these ideas and
focuses on helping you to make sense of tense. We’ve noticed that when learning about tenses,
students often quickly get overwhelmed because there are a lot of things
that make tense seem complicated. But there really is a logic to English
and in order to find it, you have to forget about the exceptions,
the dozens of little rules and you have to focus on the basic principles of how it really works.
English tenses are often taught as a list of rules to memorize. When you learn English that way,
you quickly get overwhelmed and bored and confused by all the exceptions and irregularities.
So this is actually a terrible way to understand English
because it makes it difficult to understand how the language actually works.
But there is a logic to English. And in this course, that is what we focus on.
This course is designed for anyone hoping to improve their English with a particular focus
on really understanding the tenses, how they are formed and when to use them.
By the end of the course you will be able to speak English more comfortably
because you understand what each tense means. and you'll instinctively
use each tense with the correct form because you understand the key ideas of how tenses work.
Instead of getting distracted and confused by the things that make
the tenses complicated, we will stay focussed on the things that make tense make sense.
We have identified 3 key ideas which are often not clearly taught but are actually really important.
Then we will look at the main tenses
and see how these key ideas apply to all them without exceptions.
So you can be sure that you will use what you've learned every time you speak English.
You will have seen a lot of the content in our free videos, like this one.
But if you sign up to the course you will get all that content delivered within a structure
that will systematically help you build on what you already know. You will also get interactive
exercises so you can test yourself and help to retain what you have learned.
If you sign up to the course you'll also obviously helps us, so it's a great way
you can support the English Language Club so we can put out more content in the future.
The ideal student for this course is someone who speaks English but gets confused by
irregular verbs or lacks confidence because there are too many exceptions to those rules
and because of this feels like there is too much to learn.
It’s not for complete beginners but anyone who has a pre-intermediate intermediate level right
up to native speakers will find that Inside English helps to make tense make sense.
If you want to know more then use the link in the description to find out how to sign up.
Or you can check out some of our other videos
and don’t forget to like this video and subscribe to the channel and I will see you next time.