Instead of saying, "There is a book on the table," as the cited example above does, write "A book is on the table." Learn here. Its counterpart, ‘were’, is used when the subject of the sentence is plural, and the action or condition that is expressed has already been completed or the event happened in the past. They were very excited. (verb) They were a fine group. Observe the two sentences … At the end of this sentence. Jonathan Oldstyle and Diedrich Knickerbocker are the subjects of the sentence. Where to Use Was/Were? There were two cakes. Forty people were present. Both ‘are’ and ‘were… Where were you going? In both the sentences, the word were is used in the past tense of the two sentences ‘they are tired’ and ‘the students are happy when they see the new books in the library’ respectively. Were you busy yesterday? Had been is used in the past perfect continuous tense. Third-person plural simple past tense indicative of be. So, you will use “was” with I, he, she and it while you will use “were” with you, we and they. I wish he were here now. See more. The difference between Were, Where, and We're. I wish I were a prince. Were you out last night? We were younger then. Where is the period? The cat and the dog were sitting on the fence. I wish I were young. My English99 teacher wrote a mark "weak" on my sentence starts with 'there' Dec 07 2009 23:12:39. anonymous "There" is a false subject and no, the word should not begin a sentence. What does Had Been mean? Another combo that can get confusing is was vs were. The answer is were. What does were mean? Any sentence with two subjects takes a plural verb. “You was” is an incorrect usage. We were very tired. Two seats were vacant. All of us were silent. Were definition, a second person singular past indicative; first, second, and third person plural past indicative; and past subjunctive of be. Those are two completely different words. Alternatively, you can use the passive sentence form in the sentence as follows: “The players were slammed against the boards during the hockey game.” In such cases, the terms are used correctly by describing the state and tense of the subject in the passive form. There are several reasons why you might be struggling to decide whether you should be using \'was\' or \'were\' in a sentence. Generally, “was is used for singular objects and “were” is used for plural objects. Where is a word used to ask the location of something (most of the time). How to use Were, Where, and We're in a sentence. A couple of examples would be who vs whom and further vs farther. English can be difficult, especially when it comes to words that can be easily confused. "Were" We were all tired. They were seen to go out. Even though you are singular, you must use “were”. Jonathan Oldstyle and Diedrich Knickerbocker were two of Irving's pen name. I wish I were rich. 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