“There is” or “there are”? Matching Verbs in English

in today's lesson we're going to look at a basic lesson in matching verbs to subjects we're going to look at some pronouns and we're going to look at the preparatory subject there okay i'll get to i'll explain what that means so generally speaking you've learned from basic classes your verb will match the subject right if the subject is singular the verb will be singular if the subject is a verb if the subject is plural the verb will be plural right now here we have a little bit of a problem why because the word there is not actually the subject of the sentence this is called a preparatory subject preparatory preparatory subject which means that it's taking the place of the subject which comes later which it comes after the verb the reason we do that is because to begin the sentence with a long subject doesn't feel comfortable so we move it to the end of the sentence and we put there in its place so generally now what you have to understand is that when you use there is or there are the verb matches the noun after it which is the subject right so there is a person there is a man in the room there are people in the room so a man is singular is people plural are right but then you have a sentence like this there is or are a chair a table and a tv in the room so a lot of people get confused they're not sure do i match it to the chair which is singular or do i match it to one two three things which create a compound subject and it's plural now if you hear native speakers speaking most of them will use is there is a chair a table and a tv in the room it just sounds more natural but technically the correct verb is r because a chair a table and a tv are in the room this is your subject it is a plural subject you're going to need the plural verb to complete the sentence so one way to test if your if your verb should be a singular or plural is to rearrange the sentence put the actual subject before the verb and then match the verb to the subject don't match it to there because there is nothing okay so now speaking of rearranging the best way to not have any confusion or to not feel awkward is not to use sentences beginning with there is there are most writers and editors will tell you that sentences beginning with there is there are are weak sentences they're not powerful sentences and you should try to avoid them so a chair a table and a tv are in the room okay or i walked into the room and i saw a tv a chair and a sorry a chair a table on tv make a new sentence put the thing the items as objects put something else as a subject make sure your verbs match or agree and then you'll avoid all the awkwardness now another before i go on let me give you another example there's all types of people there are all types of people now all types of people this is a plural and you should say there are all types of people but people native speakers don't like the rr they're there right it's a little bit uncomfortable for the tongue to say plus it's two syllable two syllables theirs is one syllable and easier to say easier for the mouth so many if not most native english speakers will say there's all types of people there's five cars in the parking lot there's a there's a few people at the bar whatever the situation is even though it's not correct people will say this more often than not okay so now what you have to understand about english there's correct english and then there is commonly used english they're not always the same okay native speakers basically make grammar mistakes all the time and it's acceptable it's accepted because so many people do it now another thing to keep in mind spoken english written english if you say there's all types of people if you say there's five cars in the parking lot nobody will even think twice the conversation will continue in writing it's a problem in writing you can confuse the reader because remember when you're speaking to someone you're using your hand you're using your face to basically convey some meaning in writing there's only the reader and the words if you make grammar mistakes in written english you can make it very difficult for the reader when you're writing be correct when you're speaking be comfortable that's the key point here and in writing and speaking if you're not comfortable if you're not sure change the sentence around make a new sentence but keep the same meaning now i want to look at some of these pronouns because sometimes these give people a little bit of a confusion right each or every person each and every will always take a singular each person means each individual every basically means all the individual people so we're still talking about every person in the group we're not talking about the whole group as one group we're talking about all the individuals in the group and that's why we're using the singular verb okay so each and every we're talking about each individual in the group because we're talking about each individual we're using is on the other hand when we look at all we're still looking at all the individuals but we're looking at them as a collection so now there's not one person individually there are many people in the group and we're looking at all of them and so we're using the plural verb are all the people are welcome to join the conversation okay on the other hand the whole now the whole this is not a pronoun your noun your subject is going to be here the whole group so now we're taking all the people but we're not looking at the people we're looking at the collection the group the one unit even though it has all the little different pieces in it so the whole group is welcome to join us for lunch okay so whole singular all plural okay so remember that then we have none none basically means no one single person or no one single thing now generally we use it with none of okay none of the students for example so similarly to there is or there are there is the correct way and then there's the common way in correct english none is always singular especially when you have of okay none of the students is not any single student we're talking about the individuals is uh excused or free to go but again in informal speech you will hear many people say none of the students are free to go very common technically not correct is this correct but in spoken english if you use r okay in written english you should try to use is be correct now sometimes you'll you see none without the of so i invite i ask some of my staff to volunteer for this project but none are interested again most people will use r because we're talking about a few people but technically none is interested is the correct way now spoken english say whichever one you feel comfortable with if you're gonna be taking a university entrance exam like the sat or the gmat okay these have grammar a grammar section each of these exams has a grammar section in it on this grammar section you have to be correct they're testing your knowledge of correct grammar spoken english whatever you want when you need to be correct be singular for none okay and same with neither or either neither is or are again spoken english neither i asked the two of them to come to the party but neither is available neither are available neither is coming neither are coming and i know that only one of them is will come but i don't know uh if it's either her or him that is going to come singular so these because it's one or the other singular or singular correct is commonly used or acceptable are neither of us is coming neither of us are coming again although it's a plural correct is is commonly acceptable is our your choice written english be correct is for this pronoun we're going to look at a few of the indefinite pronouns different pronouns and see how they work as well okay so now we have these other pronouns these are called indefinite pronouns everybody or everyone somebody anybody nobody whenever you're using these as subjects of your sentence they're always going to be singular always everybody is never everybody are now if you want to say r you say all the people right then you have to split it up and use the word the pronoun all but as soon as you're using it as one word everybody somebody anybody and nobody you're using is on the other hand something is we don't know what it is it's an indefinite pronoun but it's one something is if you want to use plural don't forget two words some things are it's no longer a pronoun now you have a qualifier and you have an actual noun subject okay everything is all things are two words this is a noun this is a pronoun is are anything and nothing is okay these you can't split are split up and they're always going to be singular so when you have indefinite pronouns singular when you want plural split them up into nouns and qualifiers okay that's basically it so if you have any questions about this please go to ingvid.com and ask in the comment section there is also a quiz on the site where you can test your understanding of the verb matching with these pronouns and if you like the video please subscribe to my youtube channel don't forget to watch other videos on inkvid we have over a thousand videos to help you improve your english i have over 100 videos that you can watch grammar vocab all kinds of things in writing etc go there watch ask improve your english slowly but surely so i'll see you again very soon with some new lessons bye

Channel: Adam’s English Lessons · engVid

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Keywords: singular, plural, subject verb, agreement, sva, grammar, English grammar, English, Subject (grammar), ESL, Learn English, native speaker, vocabulary, English lesson, English classes, IELTS, TOEFL, native English, conversation skills, speaking, slang, English pronunciation, pronunciation, comprehension, engvid, accent, Education, Học tiếng Anh, anglais, inglese, inglés, Englisch, англи́йский, inglês, angielski, anglicky, αγγλικά, İngilizce, إنجليزي

Id: 7be7NQKbV3M

Length: 11min 55sec (715 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 25 2021