What are the present and past forms of be?

There are three forms of to be verbs in the present ( am, are, and is ) and two forms in the past (was and were).

What are the forms of the verb to be?

Hello, The verb "be" is used as an auxiliary verb and it can also be used as a main verb. The verb "be" is irregular. There are eight different forms: be, am, is, are, was, were, being, been .

What is the present tense from be?

The first person singular uses “am” (e.g., “I am”) The third person singular uses “is” (e.g., “he is,” “she is,” “it is”) All other subjects use “are” (e.g., “you are,” “we are,” “they are”)

What are the simple past forms of be?

The verb "be" is also irregular in the simple past. Unlike other irregular verbs, there are two simple past forms: "was" and "were." It also has different question forms and negative forms. Always remember that you DO NOT use "did" with the verb "be" in the simple past.

What is the present and past tense?

The past and present tenses are all about time. The tense is determined by when an action is happening. If an action has already happened, it is past tense. If it is happening now, it is present tense . If it is about to happen or will happen later, it is future tense.

What is the past tense form of are?

The past tense of “are” is “ were .”

What are the 5 verbs of be?

Expert-Verified Answer v3 - been ,it used for past participle. v4 - being, it used for -ing participle form. v5 - is/am/are , these used for present tense. is and am for singular tense, and are for plural.

What is the verb to be in the past simple?

To use the verb to be in the past simple tense we use was/were . The form we use depends on the person speaking. Was yesterday Saturday? No, it wasn't, yesterday was Sunday!

How many forms are there of be?

The verb be is irregular. It has eight different forms: be, am, is, are, was, were, being, been.

What are the 8 verbs to be?

The eight “be” verbs: Is, Am, Are, Was, Were, Be, Being, Been . Since these words indicate a state of being, we call them “be” verbs.

What are the 5 verb forms?

V1, V2, V3, V4, and V5 refer to the five different verb forms. V1 is the base form of the verb; V2 is the simple past form; V3 is the past participle form; V4 is the third-person singular present form; and V5 is the present participle form.

What Are the Present and Past Forms of the Verb "To Be" (2024)

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Forms and functions of the irregular verb 'to be'

What Are the Present and Past Forms of the Verb "To Be" (1)

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Table of Contents

Usage of To Be
To Be: Present Tense
To Be: Present Perfect
To Be: Present Continuous
To Be: Past Simple
Past Perfect
To Be: Past Continuous
Other Present and Past Uses of To Be

Richard Nordquist

English and Rhetoric Professor

Ph.D., Rhetoric and English, University of Georgia
M.A., Modern English and American Literature, University of Leicester
B.A., English, State University of New York

Dr. Richard Nordquist is professor emeritus of rhetoric and English at Georgia Southern University and the author of several university-level grammar and composition textbooks.

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Updated on November 04, 2019

The verb to be is one of the shortest and most important—yet oddest—verbsin the English language. It's anirregular verb, and indeed, the only one in English that completely changes form in each tense.

Usage of To Be

The verb to be is probably the most important verb in English. It can be used in simple statements such as:

How are you?
It is a beautiful day!
I am from Italy.

However, itcan also be used to express complex thoughts. In fact, it's the verb at the very core of one of William Shakespeare's most famous plays, "Hamlet," in which the title character speaks the famous line: "To be, or not to be?" In this famous quotation, Prince Hamletis questioning his very existence, and in effect, wondering if it's better to be dead than alive.At its core, that's whatto be connotes: a state of being or existence.

To Be as a Linking, Transitive, or Auxiliary Verb

To beis a very common verb, however, it's importantto learn how to use it properly.Before conjugating the verb in its present and past tenses, it's important to understand what this verb does.

To be is astative verb, meaning, itrefersto the way things are—their appearance, state of being, and even their smell. To beor be can be alinking verbthatjoins thesubjectof asentenceto a word or phrase thattells something about the subject,as in these examples:

Jennifer is my sister.
That television show is interesting.
Our house is in the countryside.

To be can also be anauxiliaryor helping verb thatworks with the main verb, as in these examples:

Kim ismaking a clay vase.
Joehadbuilt his first model rocket last year.
Peoplehaveadmired Michelangelo's sculptures for centuries.

To becan also be atransitive verb, which is averbthat takes either adirectorindirect object. An example would be: "Sue is talking." In this sentence, is, the "to be" verb, takes a directobject, talking.

To Be: Present Tense

As with any verb, the present tense of the verb to be can take several forms: the indicative or simple present, the present perfect, and the present continuous. The tables below show how to conjugateto bein these forms:

Indicative Mode
Singular	Plural
I am	We are
You are	You are
He/She/It is	They are

Note that even in the indicative—or simple—present tense, the verb changes in the first, second, and third-person uses.

To Be: Present Perfect

The present perfect, formed by combininghasorhavewith apast participle—usually a verb ending in-d, -ed, or-n—indicates actions or events that have been completed or have happened in the present.

Singular	Plural
I have been.	We have been.
You have been.	You have been.
He/She/It has been.	They have been.

Examples of the present perfect include:

I have been a teacher for many years.
She has been to France several times in her life.

To correctly use the verb in the present perfect, just remember that only the third-person singular uses has.All of the other forms in this tense use have.

To Be: Present Continuous

The present continuous,also known as the present progressive,is generally used to express something happening at the moment.

Singular	Plural
I am thinking.	We are thinking.
You are thinking.	You are thinking.
He/She/It is thinking.	They are thinking.

An example sentence might be: "That course is being taken by a number of students." Notice how the "to be" verb changes depending on the person—first,second, orthird—as well as the number, singular or plural. There's no easy trick to learning which form of to be to use here. Just remember, the first person, singular requires am, the second person requires are, and third-person singular requires is.Fortunately, all the plural forms use are.

To Be: Past Simple

Past simple indicates that something happened at aspecific time in the past, as in: "Her house was built in 1987."

Singular	Plural
I was.	We were.
You were.	You were.
He/She/It was.	They were.

Note that the past singular requires was for the first and third person, while were is used with a second-person pronoun. All forms use were for the plural tenses.

Past Perfect

The past perfectindicates actions or events that have been completed or have happened in the past.

Singular	Plural
I had been.	We had been.
You had been.	You had been.
He/She/It had been.	They had been.

Some examples include:

Peter had been to the office before they arrived.
How long had you been in town before he called you?

Peter had been to the post office presumably only once before they arrived, and the person being addressed in the second sentence had "been in town" for a specific time period before "he called."

To Be: Past Continuous

The past continuous is usually used to refer to events happening at the same time that something important was occurring.

Singular	Plural
I was being	We were being
You were being	You were being
He/She/It was being	They were being

An example of the past continuous in a sentence would be: "The ideas were being discussed while the decisions were being made." In this case, the past continuous is used twice to highlight how one action was taking place at the same time as another: Ideas "were being" discussed at the same time decisions "were being" made.

Other Present and Past Uses ofTo Be

To becan also be used in other ways in the present and past tense, such as:

The comparative or superlativeformto make a comparison between people, places, objects, and ideas. Used as such, the "to be" verb works like an adjective: "The Mercedes is faster than the Fiat," or "The Mercedes is the fastest car on the lot."
Inthemodalform, also known as the present possibility, indicating that something may occur, as in: "He should be at church waiting for us," and past possibility indicating that something might have happened in the past, as in: "He might have been at school or at home."
Acopular verbiswhento be is used to join thesubjectof asentenceorclauseto a complement. Generally, thesecomplementsare descriptions, often adjective or noun phrases, such as "I am sometimes late for work."

A copular "to be" verb is essentially a transitive verb, except that the object is a phrase or clause rather than a single word. In this case, the "to be" verb, am, links the subject "I" with the description of the subject, (a person who is) "sometimes late for work."

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Nordquist, Richard. "Conjugating the Verb 'To Be'." ThoughtCo, Apr. 5, 2023, thoughtco.com/present-and-past-forms-verb-be-1690359.Nordquist, Richard. (2023, April 5). Conjugating the Verb 'To Be'. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/present-and-past-forms-verb-be-1690359Nordquist, Richard. "Conjugating the Verb 'To Be'." ThoughtCo. https://www.thoughtco.com/present-and-past-forms-verb-be-1690359 (accessed March 8, 2024).

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