Modal Verbs

Modal Perfects

Video 1

Perfect modals are not actually “perfect,” but they are called that because they use a modal verb (in this case, could, should, might/may, must) followed by a perfect tense construction (“have” + past participle). Perfect modals are used to talk past actions.

1.Let's go here for further examples.
2.Now, do the Quiz.

SHOULD HAVE

We use the structure “should + have + (participle)” when we are reacting to a past event or giving our opinion about it. Obviously, it’s in the past, so we can’t change it. But we can still talk and think about it. For example, in the Foo Fighters song, the singer didn’t know something. But when he says “I should have known,” he’s reflecting on that. He’s expressing that it was a problem that he didn’t know: he should have known. We can also make this negative by changing “should” to “shouldn’t.”

Other examples:

John failed his exam.

We could react to that situation and say something like:

“John should have studied more.” OR

“John shouldn’t have played so many video games."

COULD HAVE

Video 2

 MUST HAVE

Video 3

Exercise A: Choose the correct here

Exercise B: Past modals here