Basic English Grammar: What is an auxiliary verb?

TRANSCRIPT

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.

[isabella]

Thank you so much. I was doing a school assignment and it told me to use at least two auxiliary verbs in a sentence but it never told me what auxiliary verbs were. Really thankful for this!!

[davidwhitfield]

If you think seeing 'had had' is strange, see this perfectly grammatically correct sentence:

The bag she had had had had to be repaired.

(The bag she used to own had to be repaired.)

[nigelmay]

Just wanted to say thank you and also your really nice! So yay for you :) thanks for aux verb infos. Regards

[mohammedatnane]

Hi Jade ! well, I'd love to thank you about your videos it was very helpful for me and you really developed my English, but I was thinking if you could tell us more about Language form and meaning because when I google it, i don't found anything helpful and i wanted cause I have a test cooming soon and I really should do well   

[ryunatu]

Thank you for this lesson. I have learned the correct grammar that I didn't understand in the past.

[samardraws]

Thank you so much for teach us English, I'm Arabic. I enjoy watching your videos .

[marcosmoreno]

You doing well ....thanks ....God Bless Brazil, America

[Bawakawa]

"I don't like Peter ... Sorry Peter" :D That's the best line in the lesson.

[gianncn]

I like your pronuntiation... the best in England

[adarshrajpoot]

Can I use one helping verb for two verbs?
Ex. sentence :- Time is unforgiving, moving only forward, leaving the past as a distant memory.

[marikagzik]

I love your videos, I really do. I give them to my students :) They are delighted as well :) You seem such an amiable person and I could listen to you all the time :) Best regards from Poland

[Caledoriv]

Ahh, this reminds me of my school days when I had to learn about 18 (?) different tenses, their key words etc.

It's funny, though. I have never heard "present continuous" before; here in Germany, it's referred to mostly as present progressive.

[joesjustlivin]

This video is so helpful. Thank you Jade!

[hakanchobann]

This is one of my favourite videos as an English Teacher in Turkey. I have just re-watched this with my ten year-old son and tried to help him understand what an auxiliary verb is used for in English. I also used this video at school. And my students loved the way you explain this topic.
Thanx very much once again, my colleague.. ;)

[ricardobardales]

I enjoy each day watching your videos. Would you talk about Cambridge exams. I am preparing for FCE and I was wondering if you could talk about it or give us some tips.

[alfymama]

I am from Bangladesh. it was so difficult to heard when u talking about auxiliary verb, thanks a lot.

[reviewsbymona]

As time goes by...
You'll be much better in your teaching skill.
Every expert was once a student.

[andreacastillo]

thanks for the video! it has helped me a

[georgiathompson]

Thank you Jade. I'm still struggling with ' what does be mean'. What does be mean? *Look's at the sky*

[zhentingdu]

Beautiful Jade. It has been Helpful to me.