 In this video, we're talking about the difference between was and were. This is a question I got from one of my students. Now, I know this confuses a lot of students, so let's review that today. Of course, I'm Jennifer from jforisenglish.com and this channel is dedicated to helping you sound like a 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 I post a 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 were in different grammatical structures in English. The most common time you'll see was or were is in the past simple. So let's just take a present statement. Let's use to be late. So here we have the verb to be, to be late. Now, if I want to make a sentence in the past, for example, yesterday, yesterday, I. Now, I take my verb to be and I 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, I, the subject is I. Yesterday, I was late. Yesterday, I was late. Yesterday, you, you were. Yesterday, you were late. Yesterday, she was late. Yesterday, he was late. It was late. So notice he, she, 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 subject's I and third person singular use was. This subject's you, we, and they use were. 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 in I and G form. I could say yesterday, I 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 a 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 I could say the present surprised me. The present surprised me. Now, I can take this active voice and I can turn it into the passive and I would say, what will you guys tell me? I'm going to give you a second and I want you to write it in the comments. What's the passive form of this active sentence? Hmm, write it in the comments. So did you get it? I was surprised. I was surprised by the present. I was surprised by this present. But now let's say the active form used a different pronoun and it was the present surprised us. Okay, what would that be now the present surprised us? What would that be in the passive form? So you guys tell me write it down in the comments. The present surprised us. What would that be in the passive voice? That would be we. We is now the subject. So I need to think. Do I 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 were depends on the subject. We use was with the subject's I or third person singular, he, she, it. We use were with subjects you, we and they and was and were are used 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. I want you to write three sentences, one in the past simple, one in the past continuous and one in the passive voice and make 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 jforisenglish.com and download your free speaking guide. In this guide, I share six tips on how to speak English fluently and confidently. And until 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 I can't wait to read your examples in the comments below and I'll see you in my next video. Bye.