THERE IS VS. THERE ARE
There are a lot of ways to start a sentence in English, including how we start this sentence; by using THERE ARE/IS. In Indonesian, we can translate it into “terdapat” and this is how we use it in English:
We use there to say when or where something is:
- There are some dirty cups on the table.
- There is a party tomorrow.
We use there to say that something exists or is happening:
- There is a problem.Â
- There was an accident.
THERE VS. IT
We can also start a sentence using just “it” as the subject. We use it to talk about:
Something for the second time in the conversation:
- There is a party tomorrow. It will be fantastic!
- We saw a snake in the forest. It was very big.
Times and dates:
- It‘s my mum’s birthday today.Â
- Let’s go home. It‘s very late.Â
- It‘s four o’clock.
The weather:
- It‘s very windy.Â
- It‘s a nice day.
- It rained a lot yesterday.
- It‘s four degrees.
Distance:
- How far is it?
- It‘s not very far.Â
- It‘s a long way to the nearest petrol station. Â
- It‘s 2 kilometres from the hotel to the station.