Difference between “This was happened to me” and “This happened to me”

Which one is correct? If I am talking about the past..
How should I use “was” or “were” if there is an V2 in place:

e.g. “They spoke” or “They were spoke”

and another thing about adverbs..
How I can know I have to put adverb before or after a verb..

e.g. “includes entirely” or “entirely includes”

Sorry if something I asked seems kind of stupid.
I’m ESL student.

Answer

  1. I urge you to abandon use of the designations “V1”, “V2”, and so forth; these have no consistent meanings among either grammarians or teachers. For instance, the first two sources I found on Google used “V2” for the simple present and simple past forms, respectively, and “V3” for the simple past and present participle.

    In any case, mere numbers are not informative. Use these terms instead, which are universally understood:

    Infinitive:          be           speak          help
    Simple present:      am/are/is    speak/speaks   help/helps
    Simple past:         was/were     spoke          helped
    Present participle:  being        speaking       helping  
    Past participle:     been         spoken         helped
    

    There is more about these at the tag wiki for .

  2. You are confusing the ‘simple past’ form and the ‘past participle’. The simple past form is never used with auxiliary verbs.

    They were spoke. This is not a grammatical English sentence.

    What is probably confusing you is the fact that in regular (weak) verbs the simple past and the past participle are identical, the -ed form: help: helped, helped. But in strong and irregular verbs they are usually distinct: speak: spoke, spoken; run: ran, run; be: was/were, been, and so forth.

  3. There are two constructions which use a form of BE with a form of the main verb. The first of these uses BE with the present participle to form what are called progressive or continuous or progressive constructions. These signify that the action is not finished or completed but continuing:

    They are speaking. This is the present progressive: they are right now in the act of speaking.
    They were speaking. This is the past progressive: they were at that time in the act of speaking.

  4. The second construction uses BE with the past participle. This construction is called the passive; it ‘promotes’ the direct object or indirect object of a verb, the noun or pronoun which is the Patient or Recipient of the action, to the subject of the passive construction.

    She kisses meI am kissed (by her).
    She kissed meI was kissed (by her).

    Observe that we do not “speak” people; we speak words to people, and this must be preserved in the passive construction:

    They were spoken. This is not English; you must say
     They were spoken to.

    And happen is an intransitive verb: syntactically, it does not take either a direct or an indirect object. Consequently, you cannot use the passive construction with happen:

    This was happened to me. This is meaningless in English. What you probably mean is the past progressive construction:
     This was happening to me.

The rules governing where an adverb may be placed are complicated. I endorse J.R.’s suggestion that you pose this as a separate question.


marks a usage as unacceptable

Attribution
Source : Link , Question Author : Smile.Hunter , Answer Author : StoneyB on hiatus

Leave a Comment