Was?

I'm new to the Rocket Chinese package & am enjoying learning. Could anyone tell me the mandarin way of saying 'was' as in he was a good man? I feel really stupid but I can't find an answer in all the on line stuff I've looked at. Thanks, Marksydney

Hi Mark, In Chinese "am, is, are, was, were" are all translated into "shi4". There is no change to the word in different tense, ie, past tense, present tense or future tense. To tell "was" from "is", we have to put a time phrase like "in the past/before" in the sentence to give people an idea of the tense. So, "he was a good man" should be translated into "Ta1 guo4qu4 (which means in the past) shi4 ge ha3ore2n" Hope that helps. :)