All About Auxiliary Verbs

Introduction
If you’ve ever said “I have made a cake” or asked “Did you make a cake yesterday?” you’ve used auxiliary verbs—those little helpers that make English sentences work! Auxiliary verbs (or helping verbs) team up with main verbs to show time, ask questions, or add meanings like ability or obligation. In this post, we’ll list all auxiliary verbs, explain why we need them, and show you how they work with our favorite example: baking cakes!

What Are Auxiliary Verbs?
Auxiliary verbs help the main verb (like “make”) form different tenses, questions, negatives, or special meanings. There are two types:

• Primary auxiliaries: “Be,” “have,” and “do” for tenses and sentence structure.
• Modal auxiliaries: Words like “can,” “will,” or “should” for ability, possibility, or advice.

Why Do We Need Them?
English uses auxiliary verbs to:

• Show when something happens (e.g., “I had made a cake” shows it happened before another past event).
• Make questions and negatives (e.g., “Did you make a cake?” needs “did”).
• Add meanings like ability or obligation (e.g., “I can make a cake”).

Without them, we couldn’t form proper tenses or questions, and our sentences would lack clarity!

All Auxiliary Verbs in English
Here’s a table of every auxiliary verb, what it does, and how it works with baking cakes:

Auxiliary Verb	Forms	Use	Example Sentence
Be	am, is, are, was, were, being, been	Continuous tenses or passive voice	I am making a cake now. / The cake was made.
Have	have, has, had	Perfect tenses (completed actions)	I have made a cake. / I had made a cake.
Do	do, does, did	Questions, negatives, emphasis	Did you make a cake yesterday? / I do make cakes!
Can	can	Ability or possibility	I can make a cake.
Could	could	Past ability or polite requests	I could make a cake last year.
Will	will	Future actions or willingness	I will make a cake tomorrow.
Would	would	Hypotheticals or polite offers	I would make a cake if I had time.
Shall	shall	Formal future or suggestions	Shall we make a cake?
Should	should	Advice or obligation	You should make a cake for the party.
May	may	Permission or possibility	You may make a cake now.
Might	might	Lower possibility	I might make a cake later.
Must	must	Necessity or conclusion	I must make a cake for the event.
Ought to	ought to	Obligation or expectation	You ought to make a cake for her birthday.

When to Use Them

• Use be for actions in progress (e.g., “I am making a cake”) or passive voice (“The cake was made”).
• Use have for completed actions tied to now or another time (e.g., “I have made a cake” or “I had made a cake”).
• Use do for questions or negatives in simple tenses (e.g., “Did you make a cake?”).
• Use modals to add meanings like ability (“can”), future (“will”), or advice (“should”).

Common Mistake to Avoid
Don’t mix up verb forms with auxiliaries! For example:

• Wrong: “Did you made a cake?” (Uses past tense “made” after “did.”)
• Right: “Did you make a cake?” (“Did” needs the base verb “make.”)
• Right: “I had made a cake.” (“Had” correctly pairs with past participle “made.”)

Practice Exercises
Try these to master auxiliary verbs! Check answers below.

1. Fill in: “I ___ making a cake tomorrow.” (Use a future auxiliary.)
2. Fill in: “She ___ made a cake before you arrived.” (Use a perfect auxiliary.)
3. Make a question: Change “You can make a cake” to a question.

Answers:

1. will
2. had
3. Can you make a cake?

Conclusion
Auxiliary verbs are like the icing on your grammar cake—they make your sentences complete and clear! Practice using them in your baking stories, and let us know your examples in the comments. Next, we’ll dive into perfect tenses like “have made” and “had made” to level up your skills!