What's the difference between WAS and WERE?

Here is another post for my beginning ESL students about the difference between WAS and WERE, a very simple concept, yet many of my students still have a bit of trouble remembering the conjugations and often confuse the pronouns.

Past Tense: TO BE

I           WAS

You     WERE

He        WAS

She      WAS

It          WAS

We       WERE

They    WERE

As you can see here, we have two groups of pronouns for each conjugation.  (I, he, she and it take on WAS, while (you, we and they) take on WERE.  Now let's take a look at negative statements and their abbreviations with apostrophes:

Negative Past Tense: TO BE

I was not= I wasn't

You were not=You weren't

He was not=He wasn't

She was not=She wasn't

It was not=It wasn't

We were not=We weren't

They were not=They weren't

A quick note about apostrophes: Apostrophes take the place of a letter or letters.  In this case it's only one letter...the letter 'o'.

Interrogative Past Tense: TO BE (Interrogative is a fancy word for question...)

Now remember that with the verb form TO BE and forming questions, we just switch the subject and the verb.   (I was tired./Was I tired?)  Also remember that we don't need to use any auxiliary verbs with the verb TO BE (such as do, does or did...)

Wasn't I a great speaker?

Were you not at work today?

Was he eating dinner?

Was she calling you?

Was it the final decision?

Were we late?

Were they at the police station?

Now we can add (Who, What, When, Where, Why) to these questions:

Why wasn't I a great speaker?

When were you at work today?

Where was he eating dinner?

What was she calling you about?

Why was it the final decision?

When were we late?

Why were they at the movies?

Here is an old post about interrogative present tense TO BE in case you're curious. 

I hope this helps!

WhoM do you love? ...WHO vs. WHOM

Have you ever wondered why we say "Who do you love rather than "Whom do you love?" or why Twitter copywriters chose "Who to Follow" rather than "Whom to Follow"?  For English learners, these inconsistencies can be a bit confusing, and even native English speakers disagree on the appropriate usage of who vs. whom. 

Grammar

Put simply, who is used with the subjective (or nominative) case, while whom is used with the objective case.  As you know, the subject causes an action, and the object receives the action:

        Subjective:    I, You, He, She, It, We, They, Who
        Objective:    me, you, him, her, it, us, them, whom

When we use who and whom correctly, it clarifies and emphasizes which case we are addressing:

subjective:  Who gave you the contact?  He gave me the contact.
objective:    Whom did you give the contact to?  I gave the contact to him.

subjective:  Who called this morning?  She called this morning.
objective:    Whom did you call?  I called her.

subjective:  Who saw them at the beach?  I saw them at the beach.
objective:    Whom did you see at the beach?  I saw them at the beach.


Tip:  Notice how 'who' (one actor) is followed by a verb while 'whom' requires the auxiliaries do/did (because there are two actors).

Whom/Whom do you love?

As you can see, who refers to the subjective case (I, you, he, she, it, we, they) while whom refers to the objective case (me, you, him, her, it, us, them).  Now take a look at the examples from the beginning of this post:

objective:     Who Whom do you love?  I love him. 
objective:     Who Whom to follow?  Follow me! 

This is the grammatically correct way to use who and whom, however nobody says "Whom do you love?" and everybody clicks on "Who to Follow".  These days, whom is seen by some people as overly formal, uptight or stuffy, while others still use whom in spoken English, but generally speaking whom occurs more often in written English than in spoken.  Whether one chooses to use whom or not, understanding English grammar is fundamental to speaking well. 

In my opinion case markers, such as who and whom, enrich languages, adding specificity, clarity and at the same time, complexity to the expression of English. Old English was a much more complex language with far more cases, determiners and even pronouns. It's important to preserve these complexities in the English language, as it has become more watered down by the Internet, more mainstream as the world's international business language, all of which makes it one of the world's easiest languages to learn.