✅️Auxiliary Functions 🔰Forming Tenses The verbs be and have are used as auxiliary verbs to form different tenses of main verbs. 👉Be is used on its own to form the continuous tenses, while have is used to form the perfect tenses. Both have and been (the past participle of be) are used together to form the perfect continuous tenses. As we saw above, be and have both have multiple conjugations, all of which must be used correctly when they function as auxiliaries. 👉Present Continuous Tense (Progressive) The present continuous tense is structured as am/is/are + the present participle of the main verb: • “I am working tomorrow.” • “She is living in New York.” • “They are trying to save some money.” 👉Past Continuous Tense The past continuous tense is structured as was/were + the present participle of the main verb: • “I was cooking breakfast when she called.” • “We were talking on the phone at the time.” 👉Future Continuous Tense The future continuous tense is structured as will be + the present participle of the main verb OR am/is/are + going to be + the present participle of the verb: • “I will be leaving in the morning.” • “I am going to be meeting with my professor later.” • “He is going to be studying abroad next year.” 👉Present Perfect Tense The present continuous tense is structured as have/has + the past participle of main verb: • “I have lived here all my life.” • “She has studied for this exam for weeks.” • “They have tried to find a solution to the problem.” 👉Past Perfect Tense The past continuous tense is structured as had + the past participle of the main verb: • “I had already made my fortune when I was your age.” • “We had seen that the results were constant.” 👉Future Perfect Tense The future continuous tense is usually structured as will have + the past participle of the main verb • “I will have finished by that time.” • “She will have sung with a professional orchestra before the tour begins.” (Notice that have does not conjugate for the third-person singular in this tense.) 👉Present Perfect Continuous Tense The present perfect continuous tense is structured as have been + the present participle of the main verb: • “I have been trying to reach you for over an hour.” 👉Past Perfect Continuous Tense The past perfect continuous tense is structured as had been + the present participle of the main verb: • “We had been working through the night.” 👉Future Perfect Continuous Tense The future perfect continuous tense is structured as will have been + the present participle of the main verb: • “I will have been working here for 10 years next week.” (Notice that have does not conjugate for the third-person singular in this tense.) You may have noticed that the future tenses also use the auxiliary verb will. This is one of the modal auxiliary verbs, which will be covered in a separate section.