Question

张老师你好，我有些英语问题，劳烦你回答一下。。

Mrs. Brown lived in a small town near a big farm. One Friday afternoon af－ter she finished her housework, she went to her small shop. She opened the window of the shop and looked outside. She liked to see the green farm. There were many cows, horses and small animals on the farm. Suddenly she saw a kangaroo under her window. It was interesting to see that it was wearing an old jacket.It stood there and looked hungry. Mrs. Brown gave some bread andwater to it. The kangaroo ate them all. Then it became happy and jumped away. Sudd－enly something dropped on the floor from its jacket pocket. It was a wallet! She picked it up, opened and found there were $300 and a photo in it. That

was a man’s photo with his name “John” on it. John? She looked more carefully and remembered she had a brother many years ago. His name was also John. “Is this man my lost brother?” she thought. She took the wallet with her and began to look for the man. She asked many people in the town, and then she

came to the farm and asked the farmer. To her great surprise, （it） （was） John,

her lost brother. They were very excited and happy to see each other. 请麻烦看一下这篇文章 我的问题是 括号里的为什么用it 明明是个人啊。。 为什么用was 明明是个事实啊。。。

Answer 1

it 并不是说只能指物体。 当有人敲门，不确定是谁，会问Who is it?那是谁？ 这里it用在不清楚对方是谁的情况下。
或者去产检，Is it a boy or a girl? It's a boy.因为不知道是男是女，不清楚状况，可以用it.

至于was是根据全文的时态来确定的。 如果是很严格的事实，比如公理、定理，才能用一般现在时。it was John.只是在讲故事罢了，不是众所周知的事实。

Answer 2

因为it是形式主语，John才是真正的主语。
因为是过去发生的事实，所以用过去式was

Answer 3

it - 在不知道男女的情况下可用it
was - 整篇文章是过去式写的，所以用was