Today, I’m going to talk about the family of ‘there
is’! At first, that might seem very basic English grammar. Indeed, the phrase
‘there is’ is A1 level. However, at B1 and even B2 level, I must admit there
are few students who talk about this family. Why? Because it’s not a structure
that has a literal word for word translation in many other languages.
Anyway, let’s meet some of the family first of all. I
can’t name all of them because it’s a very extended family tree. But here are
some you might often meet while reading or listening to native English
speakers.
There is, there are, there was, there were, there has
been, there had been, there will be, there won’t be, there can be, there can’t
be, there may be, there could be, there might be, there must be, there would
be, there should be… Phew! That’s enough I think. As you will have heard, lots
of tenses and modal auxiliary verbs in there, so they can be quite complicated for
students at times.
All the example phrases in this podcast are on the
subject of travel and tourism.
I think this is useful for B1 and B2 learners of
English. So, here we go...!
Imagine a hotel on a hill. Imagine you want to tell somebody
about this hotel and where it is. This is what most of my students say:
‘A hotel is on a hill over there’, ‘I saw a hotel on a
hill,’ ‘I know a hotel on a hill’ etc.
Students have problems expressing a simple idea with a
structure that just talks about the existence of something. A more accurate structure
would be:
‘There is a hotel on a hill.’
Of course, you saw it, of course, you know about it.
But the most exact structure to say something exists is ‘there is’.
Let’s go on. Well, you know that if two things exist,
we say ‘there are’.
‘There are two hotels on a hill.’
Basic stuff.
However, we may want to talk about things that exist
in other tenses. Well, in English, we only have two tenses: present and past.
So it’s easy to use past tense with ‘there’ if we know the past tense of the
verb ‘to be’.
There was a lot of noise last night. I couldn’t sleep.
There were cockroaches in the hotel. I won’t go there
again!
There had been a mistake with the bill, so I had to
get it sorted out.
Interestingly, we cannot use continuous aspects with
there is/are because we’re talking about things that exist or don’t exist and
not about actions. On the other hand, I can connect actions with there is/are
and the thing we are talking about. Notice how we use the present participle to
do this. (I also mentioned this in podcast ???)
There was a baby crying last night. That’s what kept
you awake. I couldn’t sleep either.
That means ‘there was a baby WHO was crying’ but
notice how we omit that relative pronoun.
Another example:
There were people in the restaurant, eating snails.
Funny people the Spanish!
Remember! The word ‘there’ is the subject of the
sentence. So in questions and negatives we say:
Were there any decent beaches in Benalmedena?
Was there a mistake on your bill, sir?
Excuse me. Eh, parlez-vous English? Eh, there isn’t
any toilet paper in our room.
Now, let’s meet some more members of this family. We
don’t have a future tense in English, but we can use modal auxiliaries to talk
about the future, such as ‘will’.
Ladies and gentlemen. There’ll be fun and games in the
swimming pool this afternoon at 5.30. This evening, there’ll be disco music
with a live band on the stage in the reception area, and there’ll be free
champagne for all our guests!
Excuse me, will there be anything for our children to
do?
Well, there won’t be anything special organised, but
kids can go on the bouncy castle.
Now this podcast isn’t a lesson on how we use modal
auxiliaries. I have other podcasts on that. But consider using those modal
auxiliaries you know with ‘there is/are’. Here are some examples. Which modal
auxiliaries do I use?
Yes, madam. There should be a guided tour of the Roman
runs this afternoon even though it’s Sunday. But be careful, there could be a
lot of people on the tour. It may be better tomorrow; there might be fewer
people.
Excuse me, waiter! I think there must be a mistake on
this bill. It says here we had four portions of snails. We didn’t have snails.
In fact, I wouldn’t eat a snail if you paid me!
Sorry, sir! there could have been a mix-up with the
Spanish family next to you.
Oh, no! This means I’m going to have to tell you those
terrible ‘waiter, waiter’ jokes in English. If you don’t want to listen to
them, please stop listening to this podcast right now. There may be jokes here
that the listener finds seriously stupid!
Customer: Waiter, waiter! There’s a fly in my soup!
Waiter: Yes, sir. That is the meat!
Waiter: How did you find the steak, sir?
Customer: Well, there was a potato on my plate, so I moved it and there it was.
Customer: Waiter, waiter! This lobster only has one
claw!
Waiter: I’m sorry, sir. It was in a fight.
Customer: So there must be a winner. Bring me that one!
Customer: Waiter, waiter! There’s something in this
soup that tastes funny!
Waiter: So why aren’t you laughing?
Customer: Waiter, waiter! I would like to complain
about the food. Bring me the chef.
Waiter: I’m sorry. There’s nobody in the kitchen now. All the chefs have gone
out for lunch.
Customer: Waiter, waiter! There a fly in my soup!
Waiter: Shhh! Don’t shout out. Everybody will want one!
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