What special conditions do modal verbs indicate? Here’s a list, along with examples: Likelihood Some modal verbs express very specific conditions that don’t come up often, like dare in its modal form in “Dare I ask?” The word used in the idiomatic phrase used to, as in “I used to be an English student too,” behaves like a modal verb with only a past tense form. There are also verbs that can function either as main verbs or as modal auxiliaries depending on the context got, need, and have all behave like modal verbs in the common colloquial expressions got to, need to, and have to. Some-like shall and ought-are rarely used any longer. There are other, less common modal verbs. Modal verbs are quite common in English you’ve seen them in action hundreds of times even if you didn’t know what they were called.
