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English Grammar A1 Level Past Simple of To Be - English Grammar A1 Level Print

The verb to be is essential in grammar. It is an auxiliary verb and it is one of the irregular verbs. To express situations that occurred in the past and have now concluded, we use the past tense of the verb.

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74 views

English Grammar A1 Level Past Simple of To Be - English Grammar A1 Level Print

The verb to be is essential in grammar. It is an auxiliary verb and it is one of the irregular verbs. To express situations that occurred in the past and have now concluded, we use the past tense of the verb.

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English Grammar A1 Level Past simple of To be | English Grammar A1... https://open.books4languages.com/english-a1-grammar/chapter/past-sim...

- English Grammar A1 Level - https://open.books4languages.com/english-a1-grammar


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Past simple of To be

Introduction
The verb to be is essential in grammar. It is an auxiliary verb and it is one of the irregular verbs.

To express situations that occurred in the past and have now concluded, we use the past tense
of the verb.

Form
The verb to be is one of the verbs with an irregular past form.

Affirmative
Its structure, in the affirmative form, is:
Subject + to be (Past tense) + …

Subject To Be
I was
You were
He was
She was
It was
We were
You were
They were
Negative
Its structure, in the negative form, is:
Subject + to be (Past tense) + not + …

In the negative, the auxiliary verb “did” is not used.


Subject To Be + not Short form
I was not wasn’t
You were not weren’t
He was not wasn’t
She was not wasn’t
It was not wasn’t
We were not weren’t

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English Grammar A1 Level Past simple of To be | English Grammar A1... https://open.books4languages.com/english-a1-grammar/chapter/past-sim...

You were not weren’t


They were not weren’t
Interrogative
Its structure, in the interrogative form, is:
To be (Past tense) + subject + …?

In the interrogative, the auxiliary verb “did” is not used:


To Be Subject Question Mark
Was I …?
Were you …?
Was he …?
Was she …?
Was it …?
Were we …?
Were you …?
Were they …?

Example
Affirmative:

I was a good football player.


He was here 2 minutes ago.
We were at the beach earlier.

Negative:

I was not a good singer.


She wasn’t my sister.
They weren’t angry for what we said.

Interrogative:

Were you a fan of that rock band?


Was he your friend’s father?
Were you here last night?

Use
We use the past simple of to be as a linking word between the subject and a complement or
adjective. It provides further information about the subject itself in the past.

Related

2 de 3 23/01/2022, 16:52
English Grammar A1 Level Past simple of To be | English Grammar A1... https://open.books4languages.com/english-a1-grammar/chapter/past-sim...

The verb to be has a past form and is used in the past simple [1]tense.

At A2 level, you can see it in past participle [2]forms for irregular verbs.
For better understanding the verb to be, you can learn more preset simple [3].

Article printed from English Grammar A1 Level: https://open.books4languages.com


/english-a1-grammar

URL to article: https://open.books4languages.com/english-a1-grammar/chapter/past-


simple-of-to-be/

URLs in this post:

[1] past simple : https://open.books4languages.com/english-a1-grammar/chapter


/past-simple-affirmative/
[2] past participle : https://open.books4languages.com/english-a2-grammar/chapter
/past-participle/
[3] preset simple: https://open.books4languages.com/english-a1-grammar/chapter/to-
be-affirmative/

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