Lecture 1
We use
there is/there are to talk about the
location of people or objects.
For example:
If we look at a room and see a book or pictures we might say,
“There is a book on the table.”
“There are some pictures on the wall.”
Here is
another example:
Let’s say, we want to buy yellow roses. We go to a store to find the roses.
We look around the store, but we
cannot see any yellow roses.
We would say, ”There
are not any yellow roses.”
In other
words, we use
there is/there are to talk about things that
ARE there.
When these things are
NOT there, we use
there is not
(there isn’t) and
there are
not (there
aren’t).
Here are
some important rules to know about there is not
and there are
not:
-
The
structure of
a sentence with
there isn’t
and there aren’t
looks like this:
There isn't /
There aren't |
Noun |
Prepositional Phrase |
|
There isn’t |
a teacher |
in the class.
|
| There aren't |
any
books |
in the library. |
There isn’t
a blue pen on the desk.
There isn’t
a teacher in the room.
There isn’t
a picture on the wall.
There isn’t
any
orange juice in the refrigerator.
There isn’t
any food on the table.
There isn’t
any sugar in my coffee.
There aren’t
any books on
the shelf.
There aren’t
any
flowers in the vase.
There aren’t
any children
on the playground.
Look at
the chart below for a review:
Singular Nouns |
There is
not a book on the table.
There
isn’t
a book on the table. |
|
Non-count Nouns |
There is
not any coffee in my cup.
There
isn’t
any coffee in my cup. |
|
Plural Nouns |
There are
not any students in the classroom.
There
aren’t
any students
in the classroom. |
|
Many times, we talk about people or things in our conversations. When someone asks us a question, we often give
short answers.
For
example,
A classmate asks, “Are there any computers in room 912?”
The short answer is: “No,
there aren’t,” if we know that the
room doesn’t have computers.
Here is
another example:
Liz is asking her friend Julio about the university he will attend next year:
