Was or Were Basic English Grammar

in this video we're talking about the difference between was and were this is question got from one of my students now know this confuses lot of students so let's review that today of course I'm Jennifer from Ford's english calm and this channel is dedicated to helping you sound like fluent confident natural English speaker now before we go any further make sure you subscribe and hit that Bell icon so you're notified every time post new lesson now let's dive in with this video let's talk about the difference between was and were now of course both was and were are the past forms of the verb to be and we use was and work in different grammatical structures in English the most common time you'll see was or were is in the past simple so let us just take present statement let's use to be late so here we have the verb to be to be late now if want to make sentence in the past for example yesterday yesterday now take my verb to be and need to conjugate this in the past there are two different choices was or were your choice depends on the subject so in order to know which one you need was or were you simply look at your subject yesterday the subject is yesterday was late yesterday was late yesterday you you were yesterday you were late yesterday she was late yesterday he was late it was late so notice he shi-it those are our three options for the third person singular subject the third person singular is conjugated with was yesterday we we were late and yesterday they they were late so you can see that this subjects and third-person singular use was this subjects you we and they use work that's what you need to remember so pause the video now take as much time as you need to memorize this you simply need to memorize this now the same rule applies when we use the verb to be in the past in different grammatical structures so this example was using the past simple now we also use the verb to be in the past with the past continuous the past continuous is formed with subject was or were your choice depends on your subject right and then your verb and ing form could say yesterday was running late we we were we were running late he he was running late they they were running late so it's the same rules that we just covered that doesn't change even though we're using different grammatical structure this time it's the past continuous now we also use the verb to be in the past or was or were depending on the subject in the passive voice so let's take an active sentence and could say the present surprised me the present surprised me now can take this active voice and can turn it into the passive and would say what will you guys tell me I'm going to give you second and want you to rate it in the comments what the passive form of this active sentence write it in the comments so did you get it was surprised was surprised by the present was surprised by this present but now let's say the active form used different pronoun and it was the present surprised us okay what would that be now the president surprised us what would that be in the passive form so you guys tell me write it down in the comments the president surprised us what would that be in the passive voice that would be we we is now the subject so need to think do need was or were well remember it depends on the subject we we use were we were surprised by the present to summarize the choice between was or word depends on the subject we use was with the subjects or third person singular he she it we use were with subjects you we and they and was and we're are use in the past form of the verb to be this is most commonly found in the past simple past continuous and passive voice and now you know how to use was or were so you won't be confused now it's your turn to practice want you to write three sentences one in the past simple one in the past continuous and one in the passive voice and me sure you use three different subjects okay so put your examples in the comments if you found this video helpful please hit the like button share it with your friends and of course subscribe now before you go make sure you head on over to my website for is English comm and download your free speaking guide in this guide share six tips on how to speak English fluently and confidently and then till next time happy studying awesome job improving your English grammar you want to take the time to make sure you can use this concept fluently because correct grammar is the backbone of the English language so can't wait to read your examples in the comments below and I'll see you in my next video bye you