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 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
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:
There are + some + plural noun is more often used when we want to suggest an option or a choice. For example:
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
What's the difference between the meaning of two following sentences?
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:
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:
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
Greetings.
Please, help me with the following:
In this sentence: There is a red and white armchair in the living room.
I would like to know if I can write that sentence: There are a red and white armchair in the living room?
Yes or No? And Why?
Thank you very much for your explanation!
Hi abazurto30,
If you mean there is only one armchair, and it has two colours (red and white), then only There is ... is correct.
If you mean that there are two armchairs, one red and one white, then it would be better to say There are a red and a white armchair in the living room, to make it clearer that there are two.
I hope that helps.
Jonathan
LearnEnglish team