Please! which is correct? There is a lot of people, or there are a lot of people.

Thanks

7 Answers

1vote

There are a lot of people. If what follows "a lot" can be counted, it is considered plural. If what follows "a lot" cannot be counted, it is singular.

 

There is a lot of sugar. (We don't say 1 sugar, 2 sugars. It cannot be counted.)

There is a lot of furniture in the room. (We don't say 2 furnitures. It cannot be counted.)

There are a lot of problems to solve. (We can say 4 problems. Problems can be counted.

There are a lot of people here. (People can be counted. 3 people)

commented

Thanks for your answer!

0vote

There are a lot of people.

0vote

"There are a lot of people." E.g. you wouldn't say, "How many people is here?" You would use 'are'. Hope this helps.

0vote

hoper 140

 there are a lot of people. (y)

0vote

There are a lot of people,

we use the form of be Are  because you have to use the correct form of the verb according to the subject and in this case people is the plural form

person ( singular)------- people ( plural)

a lot of is a quantifier, which means it's a word that helps count in a general way, you can use it for countable and uncountable ( non countable) nouns.

There is a lot of traffic today ----- traffic ( uncountable)

there are a lot of stores----- stores ( countable)

0vote

I find the easiest way with these types of  expressions is to mentally reduce them to the  basic sentence:

“There are people.”  How many people? A lot, therefore “There are a lot of people.”

The phrase “a lot of” merely qualifies the noun “people”, similarly to the way ‘twenty’ does in the sentence: “There are twenty people.”

Anyway, those are  my quick thoughts if I need to decide when writing. This may help you to decide on the correct usage.

0vote

The currently selected solution is incorrect in solution and explanation. Consider: (1) There is a lot of people. (2) There are lots of people. (3) There is 1 flask of grain. (4) There are 3 flasks of grain. The subjects in sentences 1 and 2 are respectively lot and lots, not people. "People" in these two sentences is the object of the preposition, which is tied to the subject. The subjects of each sentence are singular and plural, respectively, hence the verb is conjugated accordingly. Sentences 3 and 4 exemplify this with a numbered subject and a singular object of the preposition. The correct answer is therefore: "There is a lot of people."

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