“To Be” Past Tense
The past tense of the verb “to be” is was and were. We use was with the following personal pronouns: I-he-she-it. We use were with the following pronouns: we-you-they. The negative form of was is wasn’t = was + not and weren’t = were + not. This explanation is better illustrated in the chart below.
I was | I wasn’t |
You were | You weren’t |
He was | He wasn’t |
She was | She wasn’t |
It was | It wasn’t |
We were | We weren’t |
They were | They weren’t |
We use these forms when we want to use the verb “to be” in the past to describe; location, professions, marital status, age, feelings.
Expressions of past time
Expressions of time with the word yesterday | Expressions of time with the word last | Expressions of time with the word ago |
Yesterday morning | Last night | One second ago |
Yesterday afternoon | Last week | Five minutes ago |
Yesterday evening | Last month | Twenty years ago |
The day before yesterday | Last year | One million years ago |
The chart below illustrates better the grammatical structure utilize to form sentences with the forms of the verb to be in simple past tense.
Subject + | Was or Were + | Complementizer | + Expression of past time |
I | was | in the restaurant | last night. |
You | were | sick | yesterday. |
He | was | in Italy | two years ago. |
She | was | upset | last night. |
It | was | cold | last week. |
We | were | at the party | last Friday. |
They | were | in love | a long time ago. |
The followig examples illustrate the grammatical structure utilize when making affirmative statements, negative statements and questions with the forms of the verb to be past tense.
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