LIFE008 · There Is / There Are: Describing a Place

🌴 There Is / There Are: Describing My Island

Level: A2  |  Time: 5 min  |  Focus: Grammar + Description vocabulary

📖 From Sourov’s world: Réunion island sits in the Indian Ocean, east of Madagascar. There is a volcano in the middle — Piton de la Fournaise, one of the most active in the world. There are beaches, forests, and mountains all within an hour of each other. When people ask me why I live there, I say: because there is nowhere else like it.

🔑 There is / There are

Singular	Plural
There is a volcano.	There are two beaches.
There isn’t a train.	There aren’t any buses.
Is there a hospital?	Are there any schools?

💡 any is used in negatives and questions: “Are there any hotels?”

✏️ Quick Activity — Describe your town

Write 4 sentences about where you live using there is / there are / there isn’t / there aren’t:

1. There _______ a park near my house.
2. There _______ any cinemas in my town.
3. _______ there a bus stop here? Yes, there _______.
4. There _______ three schools in my neighbourhood.

👀 Show Answers

1. is   2. aren’t   3. Is / is   4. are

⭐ Takeaway: “There is” = one thing. “There are” = more than one. Listen to the noun after “there” — singular or plural? The answer is already in the sentence.