Be Verb List: Forms, Examples and Exercises

The complete list of eight be verb forms

The chart follows the standard forms in Cambridge English Grammar Today: Be. The base form counts as one of the eight. Will be, has been and is being are combinations of words, not extra forms of the word be. The list is not a list of eight tenses.

Am, is, are, was or were: match the subject

Find the subject before choosing the verb. In The box of pencils is on the desk, the subject’s head noun is box; the nearby plural pencils does not make it plural. For longer subjects, see subject-verb agreement examples and practice.

Singular they also takes are and were: A new learner has arrived; they are in the office. Choose the pronoun’s grammatical form rather than counting people.

Why do we sometimes say “if I were”?

For an imagined situation, were can go with I/he/she/it: If I were the organiser, I would choose a larger room. This expresses an imagined present situation, not an ordinary past statement. Was also occurs in these conditionals, especially in informal usage. The British Council’s conditional guide explains this variation. For ordinary past facts, keep the subject chart: I was the organiser last year.

Make questions, negatives and short answers

With simple present or past be, add not for a negative. For a neutral yes/no question, put the verb before the subject. Do not add do/does/did to these patterns.

Contractions: I am → I’m; she is → she’s; we are → we’re. Use I’m not for a negative. In an affirmative short answer, keep the full verb: Yes, I am, not Yes, I’m.

A useful exception to the question pattern: You’re ready? can be a valid question when checking information or expressing surprise. It is not the neutral question pattern practised here. Cambridge’s guide to statement questions explains that use.

The instruction Don’t be late is also correct: negative imperatives use don’t + be. That is a different structure from a statement such as She isn’t late.

Be, being and been: choose the structure

• Be: use the base form after a modal (can be, must be, will be), after infinitive to (to be ready), or in an imperative (Be careful).
• Being: use the -ing form in a continuous construction such as She is being helpful today. It can also appear without a continuous tense: Being late caused a problem. The spelling alone does not tell you the time.
• Been: use the past participle of be in perfect constructions such as has been, have been, had been. In They have been friends for years, the friendship can still continue; been does not necessarily mean “finished.”

Compare The room is being cleaned (cleaning is in progress) with The room has been cleaned (the cleaning is complete in this context). Both are passive constructions. See Cambridge’s passive forms reference for the tense patterns.

Do not insert been after every has or have. She has finished the task is already correct. The perfect construction needs a past participle; it needs been only when that participle is a form of be.

Be as a main verb and as a helping verb

The same form can do different jobs. Look at the whole verb phrase and what follows it.

• Main/linking verb: She is a doctor. She is happy. The phrase after is identifies or describes her. Other complements are possible, including location: She is in the office.
• Helping verb for a continuous form: She is working. Here is helps form the present continuous with working.
• Helping verb for a passive: The car was repaired by a mechanic. The car receives the action; was helps form the passive with repaired.

These categories need context. The door is closed can describe its state; The door is closed by a guard at six every evening presents a repeated action. Do not classify every be + -ed expression as an action without considering its meaning.

Continue with linking verbs and their complements, the auxiliary verb list, or passive voice examples for more practice with each function.

Use errors to choose the next practice

• Questions 1–4: return to the subject chart. Ask learners to change I to you and then change today to yesterday.
• Questions 5–7: work in pairs. One learner writes a statement; the other makes its negative, question and short answer.
• Questions 8–10 and 12: sort examples by construction: modal + base form, continuous passive, and perfect. Ask for a time or meaning clue with each choice.
• Question 11: use the linked main/helping verb guides. A word list alone cannot tell learners what a verb does in a particular sentence.

For a short review, invite pairs to write one correct and one incorrect workshop sentence, exchange them and explain a correction. These are public practice activities, not an automatically marked platform assignment or a proficiency test. The grammar-practice guide explains the platform’s separate teacher workflow.

Sources and editorial note

The Kingdom of English revised this guide with AI assistance using the Cambridge English Grammar Today and British Council references linked beside the explanations, checked on October 21, 2026. The eight-form list and useful earlier examples are retained. The twelve questions and fictional workshop message were prepared for this revision.

The revision corrects oversimplified singular/plural and being/been rules and removes unsupported historical, research and personal-experience claims. See our editorial approach and corrections information.