Basics. Using there is/are and it in impersonal sentences.
There is/are and It
In English, impersonal sentences are often constructed using the pronoun "it" or the phrase "there is/are". Impersonal sentences are sentences in which the subject is not a specific person or thing, but rather an idea or a general concept. Impersonal sentences are often used to make general statements, give advice, or describe situations in a neutral and objective way.
There is/are
"There is/are" can be used to express different things. Some of them are listed below.
- To show the presence of something: there are books on the shelf.
- To express an event happening at a specific time: there is a party tonight.
- To mention the number of parts in a whole: there are four chapters in the book.
- For abstract items or situations: there is nothing on TV.
- With uncountable nouns: there is milk in the fridge.
- To express a quantity: there are a lot of people in the park.
Questions with there is/are are formed like this: is there a restaurant nearby? Are there any apples left?
The negatives are formed as follows: there isn't any sugar. There aren't any tickets available.
"There is/are" can be used with verb tenses other than present. See the examples below.
- Use There was/were for past events: there was an accident yesterday. There were ten people at the meeting.
- Use There has/have been for past events with present relevance: there has been a change in plans. There have been many complaints.
- Use There will be for future events: there will be a meeting tomorrow.
It
Here are some common uses of "it" to form impersonal sentences.
- For time and day: it's 3 o'clock. It's Friday.
- For distance: it's 5 miles to the nearest town.
- For weather: it's raining. It's hot today.
It's important to notice that there are other uses.
Pronoun
A pronoun is a small, closed class of words that stands in for a noun or noun phrase. The main types: personal (I, you, he, she, it, we, they) plus their object (me, him) and possessive (my, mine) forms; demonstrative (this, that); relative (who, which, that); interrogative (who, what); and reflexive (myself, yourself).
Pronouns are how English avoids endlessly repeating names. The catch: their meaning depends entirely on context, so unclear pronoun reference (Tom told Mike that he was wrong — who's he?) is one of the most common writing problems.
Grammatical number
Grammatical number is the singular vs plural distinction marked on nouns, pronouns, and verbs. Most English nouns add -s or -es to form plurals (book → books, box → boxes), but a handful keep older patterns: child → children, foot → feet, mouse → mice, sheep → sheep. Pronouns swap forms entirely (I → we, he → they).
Number governs subject-verb agreement: He goes but They go. Mismatching subject and verb (The team are/is winning) is one of the most common slips in writing — and one that catches the attention of any careful reader.
Questions
Questions in English are typically formed by inverting the subject and an auxiliary verb: She can dance → Can she dance?. When there's no auxiliary present, English adds do-support: The milk goes in the fridge → Does the milk go in the fridge?. The same pattern handles wh-questions (Where do you live?) and negative questions (Doesn't he know?).
The trickiest variant is indirect questions — I wonder where he is, not where is he. The inversion drops because the question is embedded inside another clause. Getting this right is one of the bigger jumps from A2 to B1 fluency.
Negation
Negation in English usually places not after the auxiliary or modal verb: I am not going, She does not know, You must not go. When there's no auxiliary, you add do-support: I go → I do not go. Most combinations contract: don't, can't, won't, isn't.
The trickiest rule for many learners: double negatives are not standard English. I didn't see nothing is non-standard; the standard forms are I saw nothing or I didn't see anything. Negative words like never, nobody, nothing already carry the negation — adding not on top doubles up.
English Grammar Basics
The English Grammar Basics tag marks quizzes and explainers covering the foundations of English grammar — nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, tenses, voice, mood, and basic sentence structure.
If you're starting out or rebuilding from scratch, this is the tag to follow: every challenge under it is designed to land the core rules without burying you in exceptions. Get the basics solid here and the more advanced topics — conditionals, reported speech, inversion — stop looking like a wall of new rules and start looking like extensions of what you already know.
A1 | Elementary | Beginners
A1 is the starting level of the CEFR framework — the entry point into English. At A1 you can introduce yourself, ask and answer simple personal questions, recognise common signs and instructions, and have short slow-paced conversations on very familiar topics.
Grammatically, A1 covers the building blocks: present-tense forms of be, have, and do; basic word order; simple questions; and the most common determiners, pronouns, and prepositions. Knowing your level matters — A1 material teaches the foundations every later level builds on, while a B1 textbook will overwhelm you. Start here and progress is fast.
Difficulty: Easy
The Easy difficulty tag marks questions and challenges aimed at beginners — typically A1 or early A2 level. Expect single-rule focus, short sentences, common everyday vocabulary, and one clear correct answer. Distractors usually rule themselves out quickly.
Filter by Easy when you're rebuilding fundamentals, warming up before harder material, or testing whether you've truly internalised a basic rule before moving on. Easy doesn't mean trivial — it means the rule itself is unambiguous and the context doesn't pile on extra complications.