Conjugation of modal verbs in the present simple (may, can, will, must, would, …)

Modal verbs belong to the group of auxiliary verbs. In the English language, there are the following: ‘can, could, may, must, will, would, should, might, ought to’ and ‘shall’. They cannot change their form and so stay the same when used in all three persons (whether singular or plural). The verb that follows a modal verb always appears in its infinitive form and without ‘to’. You also need to consider that although not all modal verbs have present tense forms, most of them can still refer to the present or other tenses. For a more detailed explanation see modal verbs.

Attention: Even in the 3rd person singular modal verbs do not add an ‘s’ to the end of the word and their infinitive form is not used with ‘to’ (not: to can).

Modal verbs with forms in the present tense

• The following modal verbs do have forms in the present simple:
  • ‘can’ (ability):
    • “Can you see the elephant over there?”
  • ‘may’ (permission):
    • “May I have a seat?”
  • ‘must’ (strong belief):
    • “The key must be on the kitchen table.”
  • ‘shall’ (suggestion):
    • “Shall we go to the new Italian restaurant?”
  • ‘will’ (strong assumption):
    • “Somebody’s knocked on the door. – Yes, that’ll be my neighbor.”

Modal verbs without forms in the present tense

• The following modal verbs do not possess any forms in the present tense. In parts, they are past forms of the ones mentioned above (see modal verbs in the past tense), but they may still refer to the present depending on their usage:
  • ‘could’ (request):
    • “Could you open the door, please?”
      • referring to the present in order to express politeness
    • “When I was younger, I could easily swim 3,000 metres.”
      • relating to the past to demonstrate an ability
  • ‘might’ (possibility):
    • “The phone is ringing. It might be Sally.”
  • ‘would’ (offer):
    • “Would you like some coffee?”
  • ‘should’ (advice):
    • “You shouldn’t stay up late; you have to get up early tomorrow morning.”
  • ‘ought to’ (advice):
    • “Marc, you ought to eat more vegetables.”

Special forms of modal verbs in the present simple

Some of the English modal verbs (particularly ‘may, shall, can, will’ and ‘must’) have special forms when they are used in negative sentence structures. In detail:

• can → cannot
  • ‘cannot’ is written as one word – without space; the regular short form is ‘can’t’.
• will → won’t
  • ‘won’t’ as the short version – but ‘will not’ is used as its regular form.
• may → may not
  • No short form is possible.
• shall → shan’t
  • ‘shan’t’ as the short version – but ‘shall not’ is its regular form.
• must → must not or mustn’t
  • The positive form stands for obligation, but the negative one means ‘not allowed to’. Its negation requires the substitute form ‘do not have to’.

Verb forms of the modal verbs ‘can, must, may, will, would, should, might, ought to’ in the present simple

Example verbs: ‘to speak’ and ‘to work’

Positive/affirmative sentences

Negative sentences

Further explanations relating to the ‘Conjugation of modal verbs in the present simple’

The following explanations relate to the topic ‘Conjugation and verb forms of modal verbs in the simple present’ and could also be interesting:

• Using the present simple
• Formation of the present simple
• Conjugation & verb forms of ‘to be’ in the present simple
• Exercise 1 present simple