the verb be

The verb be has the following forms:

Present simple:    Affirmative    I am
You are
He/She/It is    We are
You are
They are   
Question form:    Am I?
Are you?
Is he/she it?    Are we?
Are you?
Are they?   
Negative:    I am not/ I’m not
You are not/ aren’t
He/She/It is not/ isn’t    We are not/aren’t
You are not/aren’t
They are not/aren't

Past simple      I was
You were
He/She/It was    We were
You were
They were   
The past participle:      been.     
Present perfect:      has/have been     
Past perfect:      had been     

The verb be is used in the following patterns:

1. with a noun:

My mother is a teacher.
Bill Clinton was the president of the US.

2. with an adjective:

This soup is very tasty.
The children were good.

2.1 with the -ing form to make the continuous aspect

We were walking down the street.
Everything was wet. It had been raining for hours.

2.2 with the -ed form to make the passive voice

The house was built in 1890.
The street is called Montagu Street.
This car was made in Japan.

3. with a prepositional phrase:

John and his wife are from Manchester.
The flowers are on the table.

Comments

Hi to everyone,
When does an intensifier becomes pleonasm? How does one make sure that using intensifiers do not lead into redundancy?
Kind Regards,
Jay

so intresting subjects and exercices so good

Nice exercise

"What is your name?"
This sentence is supposedly easy to parse. Professor George Oliver Curme (in his "English Grammar" dating back to the Thirties) maintains that "what" is the subject. I'm a bit confused. I think that in the sentences, "What is the matter with your brother?" and "Who called you", "what" is the subject. The replies would be, "Something is the matter with my brother" and "Someone called me" (no changes in the sentence structure). What do you think?
Thank you very much.
WW

Thanks a million!

thank u so much for everything that let me know!

very useful .......thanks a lot

Hello. Thank you very much to give us such a good opportunity to find out about interesting activities.

peace be upon you
thanks very much

Those rules are very usefull. Thanks

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