Using 'there is' and 'there are'

Do you know how to use there is and there are? Test what you know with interactive exercises and read the explanation to help you.

Look at these examples to see how we use there is and there are.

There's a very big park in my city.
There aren't any street markets.
There are no restaurants in the station.
But there's a café and a bank.

Try this exercise to test your grammar.

Grammar test 1: Grammar A1-A2: Using 'there is' and 'there are': 1

Grammar explanation

Affirmative

We use there is to say that something exists or is in a place.

There is a bridge in the park.

We use there is for singular nouns and there are for plural nouns.

There is a restaurant in the station.
There are two cafés in the shopping centre.

We can say there's instead of there is. We often say this when we speak. But there is no short form for there are.

There is a restaurant in the station. > There's a restaurant in the station.
There are two cafés. > ~~There're two cafés~~.

When we are speaking informally and make a list of things, we often use there is or there's instead of there are.

There's a café, a supermarket and a bus stop on my street.
(Instead of There are a café, a supermarket and a bus stop on my street.)

Negative

For negatives, we use there isn't or there's not (= there is not) for singular and there aren't (= there are not) for plural.

There isn't a pharmacy near the hotel.
There aren't any restaurants near the hotel.

We often use there isn't a + singular noun, there isn't any + uncountable noun and there aren't any + plural noun.

There isn't a café near here.
There isn't any milk.
There aren't any toilets in the park.

To show that the negative is important, we also often use there is no + uncountable noun and there are no + plural noun. (It is possible to use there is no + singular noun, but it's not as common.)

There's no milk.
There are no toilets in the park.

Questions

For questions, we say Is there for singular nouns and uncountable nouns and Are there for plural nouns.

Is there a café near here?
Is there any milk in the fridge?
Are there any toilets in the park?

To answer, we say Yes, there is (not ~~Yes, there's~~) or No, there isn't, or Yes, there are or No, there aren't.

Is there a café near here? Yes, there is. / No, there isn't.
Is there any milk in the fridge? Yes there is. / No, there isn't.
Are there any toilets in the park? Yes, there are. / No, there aren't.

Here is a summary of these forms.

	singular	plural
affirmative	there is there's	there are
negative	there is not there isn't there's not	there are not there aren't
negative + a/any	there isn't a ... (countable) there isn't any ... (uncountable)	there aren't any ...
negative + no	there is no ...	there are no ...
question	Is there ...?	Are there ...?

Other verb tenses

We can use there is and there are in many other verb tenses.

There was a storm last night. (Past simple)
There were a lot of cars on the roads yesterday. (Past simple)
There will be a lot of people at the shopping centre tomorrow. (Future simple)

Do this exercise to test your grammar again.

Grammar test 2: Grammar A1-A2: Using 'there is' and 'there are': 2

Language level

A1 Elementary

A2 Pre-intermediate

The topic confuses me, where should I use it correctly for use.

Hello geo_rv18,

We use there is / there are when we are describing things that exist. That sounds rather abstract but it's actually quite simple. For example, I am sitting in my kitchen right now and if I want to tell you about the things in my kitchen I use there is / there are:

In my kitchen there is a big table with two chairs beside it. There is a cooker and a fridge and there are also some cupboards and workspaces. There are shelves on the walls with many small jars with herbs and spices for cooking.

There is / there are can be used any time you describe something and want to talk about it in this way.

Peter

The LearnEnglish Team

Good afternoon. I have a question regarding the usage of "there are + some". Is it always necessary to use them together? I mean, I assume that in general statements we can omit it, as in the sentence: "There are lions in Africa", but in other contexts, when we want to express the existance of something (plural nouns), do I need "some"? For instance, "There are cafés in town" or "there are some cafés in town", I guess the meaning is slightly different but would they both be correct?

Hello Ratulina,

Yes, both are correct but the use is slightly different.

There are + plural noun describes existence. We use when there is a question as to whether or not something exists, or when we want to highlight that something does exist. For example:

India has the most tigers living in the wild but there are tigers in other countries too, such as Russia, Nepal and Indonesia, amongst others.

There are + some + plural noun is more often used when we want to suggest an option or a choice. For example:

Do you fancy a pizza? There are some pizzerias not far from here.

Peter

The LearnEnglish Team

What's the difference between the meaning of two following sentences?

There isn't a cat
There aren't any cats

Please give me some examples within a particular context.

Hello lukenguyentt,

The first sentence is about a single cat and the second is more general. Obviously, if there are no cats then there is also not a single cat, so the question is why you would use one and not the other. The answer is as follows:

When we want to talk about an absence we generally use a plural verb: There aren't any cats.
We use a singular verb when the context has already made it clear that we are talking about one cat and not more. For example, imagine someone is giving you directions: Go along the path and turn left when you see a cat. You go along the path but after a few minutes you say I'm almost at the end of the path and there isn't a cat. The singular is used because the context makes it clear that we need one cat and one cat only.

Peter

The LearnEnglish Team

Dear Team,

While reading a book, I came across the following two sentences:

1) 'And where there are thinking, judgment, and decisions, psychology is at play; for instance, in the guise of optimism.'

2) 'Where there are competition and jockeying, there is power; for instance, that of a CEO or politician pushing through a pet project.'

Honestly speaking, I thought it should be 'there IS thinking, judgement, and...' as well as 'there IS competition...' because 'thinking' and 'competition' are uncountable nouns that are used in the singular.

Is there any possible explanation for using the plural form of the verb 'to be' in those cases? Or are those just misprints?

Many thanks for your kind help!

Hello AnChe,

Both sentences you quote are correct.

It's true that in an informal style, we often use 'there is' with a list of different objects (e.g. 'There's a café, a supermarket and a bus stop on my street'). But in a more formal style, and perhaps especially in writing, we use 'there are' in such cases. It doesn't matter if the items listed are countable or uncountable; since there are more than one, we use 'there are'.

Best wishes,
Kirk
LearnEnglish team

Hello, I am a student teacher from Thailand. I have two questions. 1) Does this sentence use "There is/ There are" correctly? The sentence is "There is a cat, a dog, and a snake." And is there any explanation if it is correct? 2) Is it okay to say "There are a cat, two dogs, and three snakes." ?

Hello MayChalita,

Standard usage is for the verb to agree with the first item in the list:

There is an apple and two pears on the table.

There are two pears and an apple on the table.

You can find a discussion of the topic here:

https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/140854/there-is-there-are-depends-on-plurality-of-the-first-list-element-or-not

Peter

The LearnEnglish Team

Using 'there is' and 'there are'

Grammar explanation

Affirmative

Negative

Questions

Other verb tenses

Language level

Online courses