Using the Verb Be - 5 Levels of English Grammar

Hi, I’m Oli.

Welcome to Oxford Online English!

In this lesson, you can learn about using the verb ‘be’, and test your English grammar

skills!

Are you a beginner?

Or, are you a high-level English learner who’s been studying for years?

This lesson will have something for you whatever your English level is.

You’ll see many ways to use the verb ‘be’, from the most basic uses to complex structures.

Want more free English lessons?

Check out our website: Oxford Online English dot com.

You can also book English classes with our fully-qualified teachers, who can help you

with your English speaking, writing, IELTS preparation, or whatever else you need.

One more thing: do you want to watch this video with subtitles?

You can!

Turn them on now by clicking the ‘CC’ button in the bottom right.

Here’s how this lesson works.

There are five levels.

Each level is more difficult than the previous one.

Level one is beginner.

Levels two to four are intermediate.

Level five is high intermediate to advanced.

If you’re not a beginner, start at level two!

At each level, you can see what you need to focus on if you have difficulties.

Ready?

Let’s start!

Here are five sentences.

Complete the sentences with one word.

Pause the video and think about your answers.

If you want extra practice, say your answers aloud!

Ready?

Here are the answers.

Did you get all five right?

You should probably fast forward to level 2!

Did you make a mistake?

Here’s what you need.

One: you need to know the positive forms of ‘be’, including the past forms: ‘was’

and ‘were’.

Here they are.

Pause the video to look if you need more time.

You also need to know the negative forms of ‘be’.

Here they are.

Again, pause if you need time to look.

You can see that most negatives have a contraction, or sometimes two.

You should use the contraction most of the time when you’re speaking.

It doesn’t matter which contracted form you use.

Ready?

Let’s go to level two!

Here are your five sentences.

Complete each sentence with one word.

Contractions – like ‘isn’t’ – count as one word.

Again, pause the video to think about your answers if you need time.

Ready?

Here are the answers.

What’s the point here?

You can use ‘be’ to make continuous forms.

Continuous forms have many uses; for example, you use continuous forms to talk about something

happening at one moment in time.

For all continuous forms, you need to remember one rule: ‘be’ plus -ing verb.

*All* continuous forms need both things: ‘be’ and a verb with -ing.

There are other continuous forms – you’ll see some of them later!

Let’s see all the forms for the present continuous, past continuous, and future continuous.

You’ll see forms with the verb ‘go’ as an example.

Each list will appear for three seconds; pause the video if you need more time to look.

Also, don’t forget that you can see all this information on the free lesson page on

our website.

If you’re watching on YouTube, you can find a link in the video description.

What about sentence number five?

Did you get it right?

Do you find it strange?

You can use ‘be’ in the continuous, normally to talk about people.

You use it when someone is behaving in a way which isn’t normal for them.

For example, if you say ‘She’s being so impatient at the moment’, you mean that

she’s generally a patient person, but she’s behaving impatiently now.

Maybe she’s under a lot of stress, and it’s having an influence on her.

When you use ‘be’ in the continuous, you have the verb ‘be’ twice, like ‘she’s

being’.

This might look strange, but ‘be’ follows the same rules as every other verb.

You make a continuous form by using the verb ‘be’ plus an -ing verb.

That’s the end of level two.

Remember that you can always review a section if you need to.

Here are five more sentences.

This time, you need to complete each sentence with two words.

One word should be a form of ‘be’.

Remember that contractions – like ‘isn’t’ – count as one word.

Ready?

Here are the answers.

So, what’s the idea here?

You can use ‘be’ in different times and tenses, like any other verb.

‘Be’ has perfect forms, like ‘have been’, ‘has been’ and ‘had been’.

‘Be’ doesn’t behave differently to other verbs here.

Sometimes we hear questions like “How do you use ‘have been’ and ‘has been’?”

What’s the difference between ‘have been’ and ‘had been’?

These aren’t questions about using ‘be’.

If you’re asking these questions, you need to learn more about perfect tenses.

‘Be’ can also be used in the future, with verbs like ‘will’ or ‘going to’.

Like you saw in level two, you can have the verb ‘be’ twice in one sentence if you

use a verb like ‘be going to’, which contains ‘be’.

In number three, the first ‘be’ – ‘isn’t’ – is part of the verb ‘be going to’,

which you use to talk about the future.

The second ‘be’ is the main verb.

It goes with the word ‘late’.

If you’ve got everything right so far, you know a lot about English verb forms and how

to use ‘be’.

Ready for level four?

This time, let’s do something different.

Here are five sentences, like before.

This time, there is a mistake in each sentence.

Can you correct the mistakes?

Pause the video, and think about the corrections.

Write your answers down, if you want.

Ready?

Here are the answers.

Can you see what connects these five sentences?

They all involve the passive voice.

To make the passive voice, you need two things: ‘be’ plus a past participle.

Often, English learners make mistakes like these.

Sometimes, they forget to use ‘be’ in a passive sentence, like in sentence number

one.

Sometimes, they add ‘be’ where it isn’t needed, like in sentences two and five.

Be careful, because remember that ‘be’ is also used to make continuous forms.

And, there are passive continuous forms.

Do you mix these up?

It’s not always easy, but there are simple rules which work.

Continuous forms use ‘be’ plus an -ing verb.

This rule has no exceptions.

Passive forms use ‘be’ plus a past participle.

This rule also has no exceptions!

So, in sentence four, you have a continuous form: ‘was being’, and a passive form:

‘being cleaned’.

They overlap, but they follow the rules.

‘Be’ plus -ing verb, and then ‘be’ plus past participle.

If you have difficulties here, then study continuous forms and the passive voice.

Pay attention to passive continuous forms, so that you can avoid mistakes with ‘be’

like you saw in our examples.

OK, let’s move on to our last level!

Here are your sentences.

You need to complete the missing words.

This time, you can use one or two words.

At least one word in each gap must be a form of ‘be’.

How did you do?

Here are the full sentences.

So, what’s this about?

Like every verb, ‘be’ has infinitive and gerund forms.

You can see this in sentence number one.

The sentence is passive, so you need – remember? – ‘be’ plus a past participle.

But, you’re using the verb ‘like’, which needs a gerund.

So, ‘talk’ is passive, but *also* a gerund: ‘being talked’.

Usually, we talk about infinitives and gerunds like they’re single things.

But, there are different infinitives.

There’s an infinitive with ‘to’, and an infinitive without ‘to’.

There are also continuous infinitives – ‘be being’ – and perfect infinitives – ‘have

been’.

The gerund – being – also has a perfect form – having been.

You often need the different infinitives with modal verbs.

Modal verbs don’t have past forms, so if you want to express a past meaning, you need

to use a perfect infinitive after the verb.

For example, look at sentence number two.

Think about the difference between these two sentences.

‘Would’ is a modal verb, so it doesn’t have a past form.

‘I would like to be there’ could mean now, or in the future.

To talk about the past, you need a perfect infinitive: ‘I would like to have been there.’

You can see a continuous infinitive in sentence three.

The room is in the process of being redecorated now, so you use a continuous form.

It’s also passive, so you need the verb ‘be’ twice – once for the continuous

form, and once for the passive form.

Sentence four uses a perfect gerund, and is also passive.

Perfect forms need a past participle, and passive forms also need a past participle.

This means you have two past participles in a row: ‘been involved’.

Confused?

It might take time to get comfortable with.

However, if you could understand the previous parts of this lesson, then you have the tools

you need to understand and form sentences like this.

These sentences don’t require new rules or ideas; they require you to combine rules,

because they combine multiple verbs.

However, each step follows a simple, predictable rule.

What about sentence five?

This looks like a gerund, although technically it’s a participle.

Participle clauses like this are a way to add extra information to a noun.

In this case, the subject of the sentence is ‘he’, and the participle clause gives

us extra information about him.

You use a perfect participle because you’re talking about the past as well as the present.

If you want more practice on this topic, check out the full version of this lesson on our

website: Oxford Online English dot com.

If you’re watching on YouTube, there’s a link in the video description.

You’ll find a quiz to help you practise the use of ‘be’, including basic and more

advanced uses!

Thanks for watching!

See you next time!