Name: Fix your grammar: IS or ARE - Common Mistakes & Grammar Rules
Uploaded: 2025-06-02T03:31:54.000Z
Duration: 13 min 18 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Hello lovely students and welcome back to English with Lucy.

Future simple

In today's video, I'm going to talk about when to use is and when to use are.

And this might seem very simple on the surface, but you might be surprised by some of the ways we use these words and the mistakes that English speakers make with them.

Should it be there is a lot of people or there are a lot of people?

Should it be either day a fine or either day is fine?

We're going to go all through this today.

Now, of course, before we get started, I want to remind you that there is a beautiful PDF to go with this video.

We've simplified it into note form for you to make it really easy to revise from.

And of course, I've written you a quiz so you can test your understanding.

If you'd like to download that, just click on the link in the description box, enter your name and your email address.

You sign up to my mailing list and the PDF will arrive directly in your inbox.

After that, you will automatically receive all of my free weekly lesson PDFs plus my news course updates and offers.

It's a free service and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Right, let's get started with the lesson.

Well, the simplest explanation of these words is that they are both present simple forms of the verb to be.

With collective nouns, and these are nouns that can refer to groups of people or things, it does get a little bit more complicated.

In British English, you can usually use is or are with collective nouns depending on how you think of the group.

If you think of them as many individuals, use are.

If you think of the group as one entity or one idea, use is.

Basically, what I'm saying is, in British English, you can't really go too wrong whether you use is or are.

The government are working on new policies.

In this case, I'm thinking of each individual member.

In that case, I'm thinking of the team as a collective force, as one entity.

However, in American English, people usually prefer is.

There are some exceptions to this rule, though.

We always use are after the police in British and American English.

The police are investigating a serious crime.

And when collective nouns are followed by another plural noun, we always use are.

One thing I want to say now, though, is that native speakers make mistakes with is or are or is and are all the time.

I do it myself, and I'm sure I've done it in videos.

In fact, people have probably pointed it out.

I'm giving you the rules so you're equipped with them, but no one's going to misunderstand you if you use is instead of are.

Don't let very strict grammar rules stand in the way of your confidence.

Let's move on to some confusing sentences.

English learners sometimes get confused by nouns that end in S.

These are often diseases or school subjects like measles, mumps, physics, and maths.

Now, note that we say maths, short for mathematics, in British English.

In American English, they tend to say math, no S on the end.

Math, in American English, doesn't roll off my tongue, is not as big a problem.

It's a bigger problem in British English because we say maths, so it tricks you into thinking it's a plural.

Okay, so continuing with our confusing sentences, I want to touch on compound subjects, and this is when a sentence has more than one noun or pronoun as the subject.

When these nouns are joined by and, they are followed by are.

It's easier to understand if I show you an example.

Rita and Ross are living in Kent at the moment.

So because the two nouns, Rita and Ross, are joined by and, we use are.

However, if the subjects are joined by or, the verb to be must match the last subject.

We're referring to the last noun, Ross, so it's is.

Another one, we have the Joneses or the Smiths are my closest neighbours.

We're using are here because we're matching it with the last noun, the Smiths.

Okay, now I want to look at one that I will admit I struggle with sometimes.

It doesn't come to my head before it comes out of my mouth.

There is plus a singular or uncountable noun.

There are four golden retrievers in the park.

Now, we often use contractions with there is.

When you have a list of things beginning with there, use is if the first thing in the list is singular and use are if the first thing in the list is plural.

This is the rule according to most, but not all, most modern course books and common usage.

There are apples, pears, and a huge pumpkin for sale here.

The first item in the list is a plural noun, so we use are.

There is a fast food place and two sandwich shops over there.

In informal speech, we often use there is before plural nouns.

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Fix your grammar: IS or ARE - Common Mistakes & Grammar Rules

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