In this concept, we’re going to look at a very basic lesson “There is” or “There are”.
The word there not actually the subject of the sentence this is called a preparatory subject.
This means that it’s taking the place of the subject.
So when you use there is or there?
We use” there is or there are” to start sentences to tell what exists somewhere to describe places and to tell the quantity of something.
There is
When the noun is singular we use “There is”.
For example, there is a cat (so, we’re talking about one cat singular, single cat, and we use “there is” for singular.
There is a snake (so, Snake is singular so we use ” there is”.)
Remember, There is= Singular
but remember, Don’t overuse “There is”
For example, if we want to make some sentences.
and, we’ll make sentences on bedroom okay.
like this, there is a bed, there is a TV, there is a couch, there is a table, there is a chair etc.
so, we have a bed, a tv, a couch, a table, a chair and we are repeating here there is, there is, there is, right? it is annoying, this is not the right way of writing or speaking.
we can write it in this way, This bedroom has a bed, a TV, a couch, a table, and a chair.
this is the right way of writing something or speaking something. we can’t repeat it. all the time we can’t say there is, there is series.
or we can say, there is, a bed, a TV, a couch, a table, a chair in this bedroom.
Now let’s understand Forming contractions
In simple words, a contraction is a short form, We use apostrophes and add two words to make short form.
There+is= There’s
As you can see here we have two words there and is when we add them with an apostrophe.
we say there’s, okay, will not say there is, we’ll say there’s.
this is the short form when you put an apostrophe we make it short there’s, so contractions form of there is there’s.
For example,
There’s a bowl in the kitchen.
There’s a purse in the room.
Now we need to understand, we use there is with uncountable noun also okay, uncountable means something which we cannot count okay.
For example, there is water in the glass, we’re talking about water okay. so can we count water? of course not.
we can count glass but we can’t count water. because water is uncountable,
There are
In plural nouns, we use “There are”.
Look at the following examples
- There are cookies in the jar
- There are some books on the table.
see the contraction of there are
There+are=There’re
but we avoid speaking it, we don’t speak it okay. as it creates confusion so, we avoid using this contraction form. we just say there are.
remember we use the contraction form of there is there’s. but we avoid the contraction form of there are, we simply say there are.
Click here to practice There is and There are Quiz