- Why are you absent today?
- Why were you absent today?
Both of these sentences are grammatically correct, although they do have slightly different meanings.
The first sentence “why are you absent today?” can be used when you want to ask why somebody is absent right now, at this very moment. This is because “are” is the Present Simple tense of the verb “to be”. This sentence could be used by a teacher, maybe one of his/her students can’t concentrate in class and the teacher is asking why they are not participating in the class.
On the other hand, the second sentence, “Why were you absent today?” is asking somebody why they were absent earlier in the day. Maybe it is a teacher asking a student why they were absent from the morning classes at school. Or, it could be a manager asking an employee why they didn’t go into work earlier today. This is because “were” is in the Past Simple tense and is referring to an event in the past.
Therefore, depending on the situation, you could actually use either of the sentences above.
