{"id":14055,"date":"2020-08-12T19:33:11","date_gmt":"2020-08-12T17:33:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/phoneenglish.es\/blog\/?p=14055"},"modified":"2020-09-09T18:38:39","modified_gmt":"2020-09-09T16:38:39","slug":"verb-to-be-simple-past","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/phoneenglish.es\/blog\/2020\/08\/verb-to-be-simple-past\/","title":{"rendered":"Verb To Be &#8211; Simple Past"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The simple past is used principally to describe events in the past. The verb \u2018to be ( am, is, are )\u2019 has two forms in the past; was and were. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Positive Form<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>For first person singular and third person singular, use the word was. In all other cases, use were.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center has-primary-color has-accent-background-color has-text-color has-background\"><strong>I \/ he\/ she \/ it + was<br>You \/ we \/ they + were<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>She was a student.<br>They were doctors.<br>I was in Spain in 1999.<br>We were together.<br>He was my boyfriend.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Question Form<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>In order to ask a question, was\/were needs to be at the beginning of the sentence.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center has-primary-color has-accent-background-color has-text-color has-background\"><strong>TO BE ( was\/were ) + Subject + \u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>Was she a teacher?<\/p><p>Were they students?<\/p><p>Were you in Spain last year?<\/p><p>Was Jessica with you?<\/p><p>Were you together?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Negative Form<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center has-primary-color has-accent-background-color has-text-color has-background\"><strong>Subject + TO BE ( was\/were ) + NOT + \u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In negative sentences, add the adverb not and put it before the word was\/were. Most of the time, the contraction (shortened form) is used in negative sentences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>He was not ( wasn\u2019t) in the store.<br>You were not ( weren\u2019t ) in the store.<br>He wasn\u2019t at the theatre.<br>I wasn&#8217;t in Spain in 1990.<br>Jessica wasn&#8217;t in Tokyo in 2005.<br>We weren&#8217;t in together.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>Wasn&#8217;t<\/strong> is the short form of <strong>was not<\/strong>. You can say either:<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>I was not in Spain. = I wasn&#8217;t in Spain.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>Weren&#8217;t<\/strong> is the short form of <strong>were not<\/strong>. You can say either:<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p><br>We were not in Spain. = We weren&#8217;t in Spain.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The simple past is used principally to describe events in the past. The verb \u2018to be ( am, is, are )\u2019 has two forms in the past; was and were. Positive Form For first person singular and third person singular, use the word was. In all other cases, use were. I \/ he\/ she \/ [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[309],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14055","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-grammar"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v16.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Verb To Be - Simple Past | phone english blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/phoneenglish.es\/blog\/2020\/08\/verb-to-be-simple-past\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Verb To Be - Simple Past | phone english blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The simple past is used principally to describe events in the past. The verb \u2018to be ( am, is, are )\u2019 has two forms in the past; was and were. Positive Form For first person singular and third person singular, use the word was. In all other cases, use were. 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