AUXILIARY | USES | EXAMPLE |
May | 1. Polite request | May I sit beside you? |
2. Formal permission | I may come late tomorrow. | |
3. Less than 50% certainty | “That’s why I made the call. I think maybe we could have gone a 10th or tenth and a half (of a second) quicker also on the soft tire, but then we went significantly faster on the hard tire”. | |
Might | 1. Less than 50% certainty | Not specifically, but I might this time. |
2. Polite request (rare) | “It might take a while to make any appreciable difference to the clutter in your house”. | |
Should | 1. Advisability | It’s should be the government’s responsibility to provide us with land. |
2. 90% certainty | It is and should be paramount. Respecting our great game and the NFL shield is extremely important to me. | |
Ought to | 1. Advisability | You ought to have wasted your time. |
2. 90% certainty | You ought to study more. | |
Had better | 1. Advisability with threat of bad result | “There’s not much strategy behind to be honest, I was struggling on the soft tires and thought I had a better car on the hard tires”, the Germany admitted. |
Be supposed to | 1. Expectation | I must remind you that the haj management is not supposed to gain benefits for anyone in the ministry, including myself. |
Be to | 1. Strong expectation | The EFA ordered Port Said Stadium, where the stampede took place after al-Masry beat Cairo’s Al Ahli, to be closed for three years. |
Must | 1. Strong necessity | “But we must first make sure that our data collecting mechanism are working properly”. |
2. Prohibition (negative) | We must not mix religious fundamentalism and terrorism, even if naturally we well know the links that unite the two. | |
3. 95% certainty | He must be the most populer candidate, and in many cases, popularity counts when it comes to elections. | |
Have to | 1. Necessity | We have to uphold the truth and destroy evil before conducting other programs. |
2. Lack of necessity (negative) | Jokowi, for example, said a leader should not have to be an expert, but he could asssign experts to help him deal with the myriad of problems plaguing Jakarta. | |
Have got to | 1. Necessity | I’ve got to get a new camera. |
Will | 1. 100% certainty | Arjuna Wiwaha will be staged on March 31 in The Hall, Senayan City, Jakarta, at 3 p.m., 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. |
2. Willingness | “The actors are quite open. As long as they believe in the script and the filmmaker, they will go for it”. | |
3. Polite request | Will you just quit that easy? | |
Be going to | 1. 100% certainty | It is going to be a quality leader board and it’s nice to be in the mix heading into the weekend. |
2. Definite plan | As for Jamilah, a 35 years old visitor from Palembang, South Sumatra, her reason for going to Ragunan was because she could go on a picnic in the zoo. | |
Can | 1. Ability/possibility | A year on, the effects of the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl in 1986 can still be felt. |
2. Informal permission | You know, hopefully I can prove them wrong. | |
3. Informal polite request | Can you figure out other expressions to imply pleasure? | |
4. Impossibility (negative only) | Qualifying has been pretty good to me in the last two races and I can’t complain too much. | |
Could | 1. Past ability | My record has not been very good here the last few years but still I had the belief I could come and compete here if I got it all together. |
2. Polite request | Could you please open the window? | |
3. Suggestion | The report noted that countries have in the past tried to resolve water issues through negotiation but said that could change as water shortages become more severe. | |
4. Less than 50% certainty | --While acknowledging that smuggling still existed? Gita said the data discrepancy could also be caused by exporters who transited at one point before delivering goods to their destination city. | |
5. Impossibility (negative only) | In responding to a question about winning a major championship, Donald could not hide his yearning to win a major to validate his standing as the world’s top golfer. | |
Be able to | 1. Ability | It feels so good to be able to be part of an action flick like The Raid and to read the rave reviews in a number of film festivals. |
Would | 1. Polite request | Would you mind opening the window? |
2. Preference | Syarifudin said he just wanted to ensure there would be no more conflict in Aceh so that local people could live in peace without any trauma related to past conflicts. | |
3. Repeated action in the past | Bogor Police traffic division head Adj. Comr. Syarif Zainal Abidin said on Saturday that the people would continue applying the one way system in the area due to the height volume of incoming cars. | |
Used to | 1. Repeated action in the past | How quickly we forget the way thing used to be |
Shall | 1. Polite question to make a suggestion | “Shall we try it?” |
2. Future with “I” or “We” as subject | I shall pay you twice the price you ask for. |
