Inversion (Download this explanation in PDF here.) We use inversion in several different situations in English. Inversion just means putting the verb before the subject. We usually do it in question forms: Normal sentence: You are tired. (The subject is 'you'. It's before the verb 'are'.) Question form: Are you tired? (The verb 'are' is before the subject 'you'. They have changed places. This is called inversion.) In most English verb tenses, when we want to use inversion, we just move the verb to before the subject. If there's more than one verb, because a verb tense has auxiliary verbs for example, we move the first verb. With two verb tenses where we just change the places of the verb and subject: Present simple with 'be': am I / are you / is he Past simple with 'be': were you / was she With other verbs tenses, we change the place of the subject and the auxiliary verb (the first auxiliary verb if there is more t...