Can you name the 23 helping verbs?

created by Ben

Enter a verb in the box below
Correctly named verbs will show up below
Answers do not have to be guessed in order
Helping verbs are verbs that help the main verb in a sentence by extending the meaning of the verb.
Also try: 27 Most Common English Verbs

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Helping Verbs Quiz

Rating:	Report a mistake
Created by: Ben -
Published: March 3rd, 2009
Category: Language
Plays: 95,244

Tags: Vocabulary Quizzes, verb, help

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	Aaron Walters:	Mar 3rd, 2009 at 20:03 GMT	1 point
	24 seconds nice. i'll have to thank my 7th grade english teacher for that one

	ZacharyTaylor:	Mar 3rd, 2009 at 20:11 GMT	-4 points
	wow

	Kevin:	Mar 3rd, 2009 at 20:14 GMT	50 points
	There actually aren't 23 different helping verbs, these are just the various conjugations of about 8-10 different verbs.

	montecarlo:	Mar 3rd, 2009 at 20:15 GMT	36 points
	me: "mom, can i have some chocolate?" mom: "i dont know, CAN you?" me: "mom, MAY i have some chocolate?" mom: "no." me: "mom, can i have some chocolate?" mom: "i dont know, CAN you?" me: "yes, i can." LESSON LEARNED.

	Dancinganimal256:	Mar 3rd, 2009 at 20:17 GMT	8 points
	I agree with Kevin, this list could be way shorter if they added some further restriction to it.

	montecarlo:	Mar 3rd, 2009 at 20:17 GMT	8 points
	im no english scholar, but why isnt "done" included? (feel free to vote down my ignorance.)

	maniacalclown:	Mar 3rd, 2009 at 20:22 GMT	7 points
	I was surprised that "cannot" was not one of the answers, but a little research showed that it could also be spelled as two words so I suppose it's not purely a helping verb. Unrelated: There's 9 unique verbs up there and the conjugations thereof.

	JoshT:	Mar 3rd, 2009 at 20:25 GMT	3 points
	Yeah, just like I remember it from sixth grade. We had a helping verb song that I mostly remembered.

	tilz:	Mar 3rd, 2009 at 20:28 GMT	15 points
	Helping verbs are auxillary verbs and the only ones are to have and to be. The other verbs here are modal verbs.

	Annie:	Mar 3rd, 2009 at 20:31 GMT	6 points
	If I can recall correctly, when they teach these to us in school, they teach all the conjugations, like in the quiz.

	TKlabz28:	Mar 3rd, 2009 at 20:46 GMT	4 points
	Along these same lines, there needs to be a preposition song quiz. You know, about, above, across, after, against, along, around.....

	AdamL:	Mar 3rd, 2009 at 20:47 GMT	8 points
	I only got 10 through guessing and i still don't really understand what a helping verb is. Never heard the term before.

	davidr:	Mar 3rd, 2009 at 20:51 GMT	24 points
	What about "ought"?

	Youk4MVP:	Mar 3rd, 2009 at 20:52 GMT	5 points
	you have to think about how it would be used in a sentence. You would say "I have played" but not "I done played" I'm not sure where ought would fit in.

	davidr:	Mar 3rd, 2009 at 20:53 GMT	8 points
	Also, the introduction on the main page says that these verbs "have no real meaning on their own" and "they always have to be followed by another verb." This is not true. "He is tall." "You have a nice car." "I did it."

	ntnon:	Mar 3rd, 2009 at 20:53 GMT	0 points
	Like adam lapish, I've never even heard of the concept of a "helping verb."

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	thesean:	Mar 3rd, 2009 at 20:58 GMT	6 points
	tilz is right. There are only two pure "helping" verbs. I think the modals should be included, because i think the spirit of this quiz is "verbs that can be used in compound structure". The question of "ought" might revolve around whether you see "ought go" as a valid construction alongside "ought to go" (which I do). However, I'd be in favor of eliminating the conjugations, since, "be" "is" and "were" (as has already been stated) are the same verb.

	thesean:	Mar 3rd, 2009 at 21:07 GMT	4 points
	@davidr: If the present progressive is too colloquial, I'm changing languages. :)

	moegoldberg:	Mar 3rd, 2009 at 21:10 GMT	2 points
	@davidr You could just as easily say "I am finished answering your questions" does that make finished a helping verb?

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	davidr:	Mar 3rd, 2009 at 21:23 GMT	-3 points
	@thesean: Something like "ought go" wouldn't be considered correct in British English. That said, I don't think "to" alters the question: it's not being used as a preposition but as part of the infinitive, "to go".

	Nuclear_Knuckles:	Mar 3rd, 2009 at 21:38 GMT	2 points
	I don't know the term helping verb either. Wasn't really sure what they were before taking the quiz, but my first guess was correct, and I was able to guess all of them.

	thesean:	Mar 3rd, 2009 at 21:49 GMT	2 points
	@davidr: Yes, "finished", as a participle, would be functionally an adjective in that sentence. As would "done". "To" is pivotal to whether "ought" can be modal, as a prime characteristic of modal verbs is that they do not require an infinitive. I don't think "ought go" is technically correct in American English either, (for example, MS Word thinks it's wrong) but I've seen it in print. It could just be a matter of proscriptivism, like the ridiculous claim that "you should never split an infinitive".

	Hetch:	Mar 3rd, 2009 at 21:58 GMT	1 point
	@thesean: Bon Champs!

	davidr:	Mar 3rd, 2009 at 22:01 GMT	1 point
	@thesean: Hmm. Modal verbs in French and German take require the infinitive. Wikipedia doesn't seem to help: the page on modal verbs claims that `dare' (which requires the infinitive) is a modal verb and doesn't mention `ought'. I suppose that, if `ought' is included, then all kinds of other things might have to follow: dare, want, try, need, like and love can all be followed by infinitives.

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	davidr:	Mar 3rd, 2009 at 22:04 GMT	-2 points
	@Jeff H.: Good fields?

	davidr:	Mar 3rd, 2009 at 22:06 GMT	1 point
	@DudeMeister4: Actually, I suspect that it might be a primarily American term. I've only ever heard them called auxilliary or modal verbs.

	CarpeDiem:	Mar 3rd, 2009 at 22:06 GMT	5 points
	Once again, Ben, KUDOS! Great concept for a game. Maybe there could be an explanation in the intro stating that the various conjugations are actually separate entries here? Still, cool game. I can't believe how many great concepts you come up with. Don't you work or go to school or something? Or do you think up Sporcle games 24-7? :-)

	Jelle:	Mar 3rd, 2009 at 22:12 GMT	3 points
	I only got the actual verbs and not the conjugated forms of have, be and do. Seems quite pointless to have them in there along with their infinitives. I also tried need, dare and a couple of other ones that can be used as auxiliary, but to no avail. :(

	TV:	Mar 3rd, 2009 at 22:12 GMT	4 points
	There are less than 23 different verbs in that list...

	thesean:	Mar 3rd, 2009 at 22:13 GMT	1 point
	@davidr: Yeah, it seems ought is out. Let us mourn its never being. :P

	thesean:	Mar 3rd, 2009 at 22:18 GMT	4 points
	@DudeMeister4 and @davidr: I'm pretty sure its an American thing, though by no means universal, especially after elementary school. I can't say I ever saw "helping verb" in an English textbook after, say, elementary school. Personally, I use "auxiliary" exclusively.

	thesean:	Mar 3rd, 2009 at 22:20 GMT	6 points
	@DudeMeister4: One last thing... just imagine when the "I can haz cheezburger" crowd really starts raising some kids. "Daddy, can I have a snack?", "Yes Billy. You can haz snackies." :P

	weizenugb:	Mar 3rd, 2009 at 22:25 GMT	8 points
	@ davidr: Dare doesn't always need the infinitive. It might be an obsolete or archaic construction, but at least at one point it was grammatically correct. For example "I dare say..." You see constructions like that a lot in 19th century literature, but I don't know if it's still in use today. At one point it was modal, but I think the meaning has shifted as English has dropped many of its constructions it once shared with other Germanic languages.

	davidr:	Mar 3rd, 2009 at 22:34 GMT	-4 points
	@Tim W.: When I wrote that, I could only think of sentences like `I dare you to do X,' which do require the infinitive. But, yes, there are all sorts of cases where the infinitive isn't required, such as `I dare do X.' I think that's still OK in modern English.

	Statto2:	Mar 3rd, 2009 at 22:35 GMT	5 points
	17/23. Not bad as it took me about 40 seconds to work out what a "helping verb" was. Certainly not something I heard in the UK in the 70s. I am pretty sure that if I told my English Teacher "I am done finishing your questions" I would have been told off for sloppy grammar! @TV - sorry to be pedantic but it should really be "there are fewer than 23 different verbs in that list". Basically, if you can count it you use fewer e.g. "there are fewer people in this room" as opposed to "there is less water in this glass."

	klogg:	Mar 3rd, 2009 at 22:40 GMT	9 points
	nice quiz. but what I really want to know is what are the unhelpful verbs...every group has its bad eggs..

	lulubelles:	Mar 3rd, 2009 at 22:41 GMT	1 point
	@davidr how about 'how dare you'? That doesn't need a verb, and seem more correct than 'I dare do x' somehow