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.
English Grammar
- Pronouns
- Determiners and quantifiers
- Possessives
- Adjectives
- Adverbials
- Nouns
- Verbs
- irregular verbs
- question forms
- verb phrases
- present tense
- past tense
- perfective aspect
- continuous aspect
- active and passive voice
- to + infinitive
- -ing forms
- talking about the present
- talking about the past
- talking about the future
- verbs in time clauses and if clauses
- wishes and hypotheses
- the verb be
- link verbs
- delexical verbs like have, take, make and give
- Modal verbs
- double object verbs
- phrasal verbs
- reflexive and ergative verbs
- verbs followed by to + infinitive
- verbs followed by -ing clauses
- verbs followed by that clause
- Clause, phrase and sentence
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Comments
How different is the TO BE VERB from the BE VERB.
Thanks.
team
Hello Ebenezer!
It is not a different verb - just a different form of the verb, called the infinitive (or sometimes the to + infinitive). You can read about it here.
Regards
Jeremy Bee
The LearnEnglish Team
It is brief and useful . Thanks .
it helps me alot
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
team
Hello Jay -
That's a very complex question, and not one easily answered in formal linguistic terms, or with strict rules. Instead, it is more a question of stylistics and expressive range. Spoken language is much more tolerant of redundancy than written language – 'It's very, very good' is perfectly acceptable spoken English, for example, and in some kinds of writing, it would be acceptable to use redundancy to give emphasis. On the other hand, in academic writing, you would avoid this kind of redundancy – although there are some set idioms (“null and void”) which are still acceptable. In short, you cannot make sure that using intensifiers does not become redundant without considering the specific context and the way native speakers would use the language in that context.
Hope that helps!
Regards
Jeremy Bee
The LearnEnglish Team
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!