kien

A State or Event in the Past

Level 2

Kien is masculine singular “was”; kienet is feminine singular; kienu is third-person plural “were.”

How It Works

A form of kien places a description in the past. Third-person forms include masculine singular kien, feminine singular kienet and plural kienu. Other person forms include first-person singular kont and second-person plural kontu.

As a copula, it links a subject to a past identity, property or location. As an auxiliary, it combines with another predicate: an imperfect can describe a past habit, qed plus imperfect a past progressive, and a perfect an event earlier than a past reference point.

Auxiliary negation normally falls on kien, as in ma kienx. This default has lexical exceptions: kien ma jiflaħx describes someone who was unwell, retaining negation on the health predicate.

Examples (3)

  1. Il-ħanut kien quddiem l-iskola.

    The shop was opposite the school.

    Kien links a masculine singular subject to a past location.

  2. Jien kont fil-lukanda ilbieraħ.

    I was in the hotel yesterday.

    Jien explicitly identifies the speaker; kont carries first-person singular agreement here.

  3. Nina kienet qed tikteb filgħodu.

    Nina was writing in the morning.

    The feminine auxiliary places the progressive in the past.

How It Connects

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kienLevel 2A State or Event in the Past

Learn This First

Introduce kien's own person forms and distinguish its past copular use from its auxiliary use. The auxiliary combinations are an orientation to later lessons, while this lesson's central step is recognizing the past frame and subject agreement.

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Words in This Pattern

kien