The difficulty with It is/There is is that translated to Swedish both mean - Det är
You find links for exercises at the bottom of the page
1. To give new information
There is a meeting tonight at the town hall
There are many spectators at the game
There was an accident last night
There is/are
There is is used for singular, There are for plural
There was and There were in the past tense
You use There is/are:
It is
You use It is to talk about:
1. Times, dates and distances
It is nearly three o'clock
It is my birthday
It's the third of April
It is five miles to the station.
2. Weather
It's raining
It was getting cold (for past tense, use was)
It's very warm outside
If you try and set the It is sentence in the plural, it will not work. In general, if you can write the sentence in the plural, you should use There is/are
It is can be abbreviated to It's.
2. To describe something that exists
There is a pen on the table
There are three cats in the house
There were a lot of people at the party
There is no reason to laugh about it
There are many fairies in the forest
3. To give an opinion
It is very nice of you to see me
It is extremely cold in here
It's very comfortable in my new apartment
4. If you refer to something already mentioned or to identify someone, you use It is:
What is that? It is a cat.
Who is that? It's our substitute teacher.
You also say "Hi, it's me again."
3. To specify numbers or quantity
There are twenty people waiting for you
There are some biscuits left
There is nothing to do around here
There were at least 500 at the game
There was a lot of rain last night
There is someone waiting to see you