Hello everyone, and welcome back to my channel Sparkle English where I teach you how to improve
your level of English. In today's video, I'm going to teach you about the verb to be and how we use
it in the past simple. I'm going to teach you the difference between was and were and how to write
sentences in the positive form negative form and how to make questions with short answers.
We use the verb to be to talk about ages, jobs, that time, feelings, nationalities, and more.
We use the simple past tense of the verb to be for any state to describe a person or situation
in the past. So, here we have the comparison of the present simple and the past simple.
For example, I am happy today. I was sad yesterday. We use the present simple to describe
all of these things here in the present, but we use the past simple form to describe anything
that happened in the past. So I am becomes I was, you are becomes you were, he is becomes he was
or she was, it was, and you, we, and they are become you were, we were, they were.
Also, it's important to note that we only have the contraction of the verb to be in the present
form. You can say you're instead of you are, but you can't say you're instead of you were. So with
the past simple, you just have to remember was or were. So let's look at some examples.
Here we have the present, and here we have the past. It was cloudy yesterday. It is sunny today.
They were happy at the cinema last Friday. They are sad this morning.
Now let's look at how we form negative sentences. I was not or I wasn't. You were
not or you weren't. He was not or he wasn't. She wasn't. It wasn't. You, we, they were not.
You weren't. We weren't. They weren't. So let's look at some examples. It wasn't sunny yesterday.
It was rainy. In the present tense, we would say Toby isn't in a good mood today. He is angry.
We weren't at a restaurant last night. We were at the cinema.
They aren't at home right now. They are at school. So here we can see the difference between
using aren't in the present tense and weren't in the past.
Now let's look at how we form questions with the past simple form of the verb to be.
Was I? Were you? Was he? Was she? Was it? Were you? Were we or they? We always begin the question
with that to be form. You cannot say "You were angry last night?" You have to say "Were you angry
last night?" Let's look at some examples. Was she in Canada for the holidays? Is she in Spain now?
So again, we can see the difference between was in the past and is for right now in the present.
Were you busy yesterday? Are you available right now?
Again in the past, we use was or were and we use am, is, or are in the present tense.
Now how do we form short answers? Let's look at some examples.
Were you tired?
Yes, I was. Or no, I wasn't. Were they born in Italy? Yes, they were.
No, they weren't. Was she at the party? Yes, she was. No, she wasn't.
So pay attention to the form here at the beginning of the question. If it says were they,
we would answer, yes, they were. No, they weren't. The only difference
is "Were you tired?" because the subject you would have to respond as I. Yes, I was. No, I wasn't.
Okay, so now we are going to do some practice together. There are nine questions in total.
I'm going to read each question out to you, and then we will correct them at the end. For example,
if you see this check here, it means you have to put this in the positive form of the verb to be in
the past simple. So not it is a beautiful wedding. We have to use the past tense of the verb to be,
and if you see an x, you have to use the negative form. So number one, it ____ a beautiful wedding.
Number two, James ____ happy last night.
Number three, you ____ a terrible boyfriend. Four, it ____ good film.
Five, we ____ invited to the party. Six, they ____ married. Seven, it ____ hot outside.
Now for this one, we are doing questions. So just answer
the form of the verb to be in the past for questions and short answers. Question eight,
____ they your cousins? No, they ____.
And finally number nine. ____ she your friend? Yes, she ____ . We aren't friends anymore.
So now we are going to correct these together. Number one, it was
a beautiful wedding. Number two, James wasn't or James was not happy last night. Number three.
You were a terrible boyfriend. Number four. It was a good film. Number five. We weren't
or we were not invited to the party. Number six. They weren't married.
Number seven. Was it hot outside? Number eight, were they your cousins?
And the answer: No, they weren't. Number nine. Was she your friend?
And the answer? Yes, she was. Okay. So let me know how many you got correct out of nine.
You can count these ones as 0.5 each. Make sure to look in the description below to
look at my playlist for all my other English grammar videos. So thank you guys once again
for watching this lesson. Good job. Make sure to subscribe to Sparkle English for
more videos on how to improve your level of English. I will see you in my next lesson.