WORLD OF ENGLISH

We divide verbs into two broad classifications:

 

1. Helping Verbs

 

Imagine that a stranger walks into your room and says:

• I can

• People must

• The Earth will

 

Do you understand anything? Has this person communicated anything to you? Probably not! That's because these verbs are helping verbs and have no meaning on their own. They are necessary for the grammatical structure of the sentence, but they do not tell us very much alone. We usually use helping verbs with main verbs. They "help" the main verb. (The sentences in the above examples are therefore incomplete. They need at least a main verb to complete them.) There are only about 15 helping verbs.

 

2. Main Verbs

 

Now imagine that the same stranger walks into your room and says:

• I teach

• People eat

• The Earth rotates

 

Do you understand something? Has this person communicated something to you? Probably yes! Not a lot, but something. That's because these verbs are main verbs and have meaning on their own. They tell us something. Of course, there are thousands of main verbs.

 

Helping verbs can be studied

 

Main verbs can be studied 

 

All the main rules for verbs can be studied