Subject-Verb Agreement: People has or have? News is or are?| English Grammar Lesson | C1-Advanced

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Hello and welcome everyone to this lesson, which  is about agreements, grammatical agreements. Let  

me share my screen with you and see that there  are three categories of agreement that I have  

chosen to go over with you today. The common  mistakes take place in these three categories:  

subject-verb, noun-pronoun, and determiner- noun.  So, let's start by looking at two very basic rules  

that you learn very easily and quickly right at  the start of your English studies, and they are:  

Add 's' to make a noun plural, for example: one  girl, two girls, and add 's' to make a verb third  

person singular: Two girls dance. One girl dances.  So, a bit confusing! That's the English language.  

But these are, this is where the most common  mistakes come from: forgetting these two rules,  

particularly dropping the 's'. You just  need to pay a bit more attention here. So,  

having now pointed this out, we can look at the  other mistakes that you saw in the first slide:  

subject-verb, noun- pronoun, determiner-noun, and  these mistakes come from the many irregularities  

and exceptions of the English language. So, don't  beat yourself up for making them. We all do. And  

the purpose, as I said, is to gradually become  aware of them and get rid of them so that you  

feel more confident in using the language. So,  let's start with the first category: subject-verb.  

I've got five groups, five different groups, in  this category. The first group is when we have  

a singular form, which is usually an adjective,  that refers to a category of people, for example:  

the rich - combined with the word the - the rich  = all rich people, the poor = all poor people,  

the elderly, the unemployed, etc. When we see the  word, it's a singular word: adjective obviously,  

and we think: Oh, singular verb. No, it needs to  be plural because we're talking about a group of  

people. So, the elderly, not is, but are a source  of wisdom, for example. That's straightforward;  

just something to remember. The next one is when  the plural form refers to a single entity or a  

single unit, for example countries with 's' at  the end of their name, plural names basically:  

the United States or a sum of money: $300.  Again we see the 's' and think: It's plural:  

plural verb. No, it's one unit, one entity: use a  singular verb: $300 was a bargain price. Next one,  

third group in this category 'subject-verb  mistakes' is when the plural form has no 's':  

irregular plurals. The four common ones that I  often hear mistakes with are: men, women, people,  

children. So 'people' particularly! Everyone  uses, not everyone, but I think 90% of the  

time I hear this mistake with 'people': People  has ... 'people' is the plural of 'person', so:  

Many people have refused to vote. Now, there are  two exceptions here, and they are the words 'data'  

and 'media'. They are irregular plurals of 'datum'  and 'medium'. They are irregular plurals, but you  

will hear both singular and plural verbs with them  when native speakers use them. These are usually  

common native speaker mistakes that have become  acceptable. So, although the grammatically correct  

form is: More data have been collected, you're  very likely to hear: More data has been collected.  

So, I haven't crossed it out, crossed 'has' out  as a mistake, but as an alternative which is  

grammatically incorrect but acceptable. So, you  can use it if you want. And now, we come to the  

fourth group in this category 'subject-verb', and  that's when the singular word which is uncountable  

ends, happens to end, in 's' and examples are:  news, diabetes, physics. These are singular and  

they're uncountable. So, because we see the 's',  we think: Ah, a plural noun! Not necessarily! So,  

be careful. It's: No news is good news. A note  and an exception for this group: There are three  

common words: series, species, and means that have  the same singular and plural form. So, you have to  

remember in your context if you're using them as  a singular word or a noun or a plural noun. So,  

we would say: Some TV series are terrible: some  series, but: This series (1) is good. Again an  

exception within this group: The word headquarters  is the same as series, species, and means;  

it is both singular and plural, so we should  really use singular when it's one headquarters,  

but you will hear both: Our headquarters has  / have moved to Dublin. Right! And the final  

group within this category 'subject-verb' mistakes  is when the singular form refers to a group, for  

example: team, staff, government, board, family,  etc. Now, in this case, both a singular verb and  

a plural verb are grammatically correct, but it's  a little bit context-related which one is better  

to use. Particularly if the action, the verb, is  being carried out by each individual member of the  

group, then it's better to use a plural verb. So,  when we're talking about the board as one thing,  

like: The board is composed of seven people,  obviously it's singular. The board is one board:  

is composed of seven people. But when we're  talking about this board meeting, so now  

we're thinking of each individual member of this  board, board of management, board of directors,  

it's better to say: The board meet, particularly  in British English. 'meets' is not wrong  

grammatically, and it's sometimes even common in  American English. So, we can't say it's wrong;  

you have a choice, but I would recommend you  use the plural form. There's one exception here  

and that's 'police'. In both British and American  English, it's always plural. So, here it's wrong  

to say: The police has. You have to say: The  police have been informed. Right. So, as you  

can see, there are exceptions, irregularities.  Again, I'll repeat: Don't beat yourself up when  

you make subject-verb agreement mistakes. You  just need revision, revision, revision. Okay,  

that brings us to the next category, which is  noun-pronoun mismatch or disagreement sometimes,  

and the common ones, the ones I've chosen are the  ones I often hear. There may be others. The first  

one is using 'he', 'him', or 'his' instead of  'it' and 'its' when referring to an object. So  

obviously you know this, but it's very common,  a common mistake that I hear, so don't say:  

Every theory has his faults, but its faults.  You need to activate the word 'its': I-T-S,  

without the apostrophe. And then, from this comes  the mistake of using 'its' instead of 'their' when  

the object is plural. So, for example if you  go from 'Every theory has its faults.' to 'All  

theories', you need to change 'its' to 'their':  All theories have their faults. Right. And one  

other in this category, only one more, and that is  using again 'he', 'his', or 'him' with indefinite  

pronouns that refer to people, for example:  everybody, nobody, someone, etc. For these words,  

you should use 'they', 'them', and 'their'. And  in this case, 'they', 'them', and 'their' are  

called 'genderless pronouns'. So the example would  be: Someone knocked, but by the time I opened the  

door - the mistake would be 'he had left'. We  don't know if the someone was male or female,  

so the correct pronoun to use here is: they  had left. The alternative is to say: He or  

she had left. But, this is not the best option; it  makes your sentence long and a bit awkward. Okay,  

so that's that category. And the final category  is 'determiner-noun' mistakes. The most common  

one I hear is using 'this' or' that' before a  plural noun. So, instead of saying: This people  

know each other, you need to say: These. You have  to activate the words 'these', and the next one:  

those. Our evaluation was based on - not that  criteria - 'criteria' is also a plural noun,  

so: those criteria. Next one in this category is  using the word 'another' with a plural noun: very  

common mistake. So, I very often hear: Oh, there  are another drawbacks. The word you need to use  

here is 'other': There are other drawbacks. You  could say: There is another - 'an' is singular,  

right? There is another drawback, but there  are other drawbacks. And the last one in this  

category is using a plural noun after 'each' and  'every'. I don't hear this very often, but I have  

come across it. So example: New species are dying  out each day, not each days. Or: not every people  

must take responsibility, every person must take  responsibility. And just to remind you, although  

it's 'every person', because we don't know if it's  'he' or 'she', we must use the genderless pronoun:  

for their actions. So, these are the mistakes  I wanted to point out, mention, in these three  

categories, but before we end, there are two other  mistakes that don't fall into these categories,  

but I thought I should mention to you. The  first one is a very common native mistake,  

and it's becoming more and more common; you will  start hearing it, and that is you will hear things  

like: There is a lot of books on this topic. Now,  we know, we learned very early in our English  

studies, that 'books' is plural, so we have to  use the plural form: There are a lot of books  

on this topic. Or '20 people'. We know that  'people' is plural: There were 20 people at the  

party. But just if you watch television and pay  attention to this structure, you will notice that  

more and more native speakers are just going:  There's a lot of books, There was 20 people.  

I would personally avoid this, but okay: your  choice. And the final thing, a very common mistake  

we make as non-native speakers, and that is in  this kind of structure saying something like:  

One of my friend has an electric car. It's one  of many friends, so the noun has to be plural,  

but of course the verb agrees with one, that  one particular friend, and therefore it's:  

One of my friends has an electric car. Okay.  That's the end of the presentation. I hope it  

has helped you maybe identify some of the mistakes  you've been making, and without panicking about it  

or stressing yourself about it, gradually begin  to get rid of them. I hope you've enjoyed this  

lesson. For more on this topic, click here.  Remember to also check out my complete online  

course, and don't forget to like and subscribe.  Thank you for watching and happy studies!