Hi, guys! Welcome to Series English!
My name is Antonia Romaker
and today we are going to study a very important topic.
We are going to talk about common mistakes in English.
And a lot of my students use the particle 'to'
when they are not supposed to.
So we are going to talk about cases
when not to use 'to'.
And first of all we are going to talk about an infinitive.
What is an infinitive?
It is the initial form of the verb,
when one verb goes after another.
For example, 'I want to help you'.
'To help' is an infinitive,
it goes after another verb
and it is in its initial form.
Usually after most verbs we use the infinitive with the particle 'to'.
But it doesn't happen all the time.
For example, we should not use 'to' after modal verbs.
What modal verbs do you know?
Can, could, may, might, must, should and a couple more.
So after them, of there's another verb, and usually there's another verb,
we do not use the particle 'to' between.
Can you help me?
Never say 'can you to help me?' or 'I can to help you'.
Or anything of the kind.
I must go. Not 'I must to go'.
I must go.
No particle 'to' between the modal verb 'must' and the infinitive 'go'.
Now try to create a couple of your own examples in order to practice.
OK, so modal verbs, after them, if there's an infinitive,
we don't use the particle 'to' before it.
Now here we should also take a look at three more verbs:
make, let and help.
After them we don't use the particle 'to' as well.
However as you can see there's an asterix after the verb 'help'.
Because actually it is dubious.