湯姆以前是教師嗎？

Did Tom use to be a teacher?

Source: Tatoeba

Sentence Composition

1 湯姆 Tāngmǔ Tom (name)
2 以前 yǐqián
  1. before
  2. formerly
  3. previous
  4. ago
=3 是 shì
  1. to be (followed by substantives only)
  2. correct; right; true
  3. (respectful acknowledgement of a command) very well
  4. (adverb for emphatic assertion)
=3 是 shì variant of 是 shì
4 教師 jiàoshī teacher

classifier: 個
=5 嗎 má (coll.) what?
=5 嗎 mǎ used in 嗎啡 mǎfēi
=5 嗎 ma (question particle for "yes-no" questions)