Transcript of AE 1111 - My family IS or ARE?? Advanced English Grammar Lesson

Hey, Pete, are you into music? Karnivool are my favourite Australian band. You mean Karnivool "is" your favourite band. No, there are five of them in the band. Karnivool "are" my favourite band. Yeah, but band is a singular collective noun, so you should be using the singular form of the verb "to be", "is".

Karnivool "is" my favourite band. I guess so, but I'm thinking of them as a group of people. So, it sounds more natural to say Karnivool "are" my favourite band. Yeah, okay. But grammatically, it's wrong. But everyone says it this way. I don't. Yeah, because you're a weirdo.

G'day, you mob. I'm Pete, the host of Aussie English, welcome to this episode. Today we're going to be covering why sometimes English speakers use plural verb forms with singular collective nouns. Bit weird, right? Before we get started, guys, don't forget to grab today's worksheet, which is linked in the description below.

When you download this you can follow the lesson as you go, see all the example sentences, all of the vocab, everything like that. Take notes, print it out, etc. And you'll get all my future lessons directly in your email inbox. So, a common question I get from students is, why do native speakers sometimes say things like, "the crowd 'are' getting angry, or the class 'go' out for lunch every day"?

"Crowd and class" are singular collective nouns after all, right? So, why are we using "go and are" instead of "is and goes"? For example, you could say "the crowd 'is' getting angry, or the class 'goes' to lunch every day."

Technically, that's right, but English speakers often use the plural form because they're thinking of the group as many different people. So, the rule is supposedly as follows, if the speaker thinks about the collective noun as a single entity where the individuals or members within it are acting together, they should use the singular verb form.

For instance, "my family 'is' coming to dinner. Your footy team 'wins' every game. The government 'collects' taxes." However, if individuals or members of the group aren't acting as a unit, the speaker can decide to use a plural form of the verbs instead.

For example, "my family 'are' arguing over what to have for dinner. Your footy team seem 'to be' competing with one another for the ball. The government 'disagree' constantly about tax reform." In reality, though, English speakers aren't really considering the grammar that they're using and whether it's correct or incorrect. They're using structures that they hear commonly with people in their social network that they speak with.

So, if it's in high frequency, whether it's correct or not, it's common to use it. So, ultimately, what it comes down to is whether what's being said sounds natural to the English speaker. If they're used to thinking about collective nouns as plural, because there are many individuals in that group, they may prefer to use plural verb forms instead of a singular one.

So, you may hear phrases like, "my family 'are' coming to dinner. Your footy team 'win' every game. The government 'collect' taxes." Let's go through a few more examples, guys, where now we'll use it as a listen and repeat exercise, so you can practise your pronunciation. And we'll also focus on stress, so which words within these phrases are being stressed?

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Okay, so repeat these sentences after me. "The class are a great bunch of kids. The class are a great bunch of kids." Which words are being stressed? Class, great, bunch and kids. So, the important nouns there, as well as the adjective "great". "The class are a great bunch of kids."

"The group want to go out for dinner. The group want to go out for dinner. Which words are being stressed? Group go out and dinner. And interestingly, for the phrasal verb, "go out", I feel like the stress is actually on the preposition "out" instead of on "go". "The group want to go out for dinner. The group want to go out for dinner."

"The band start touring Australia in January. The band start touring Australia in January." There's a lot of words being stressed here. Band, start, touring, Australia and January. The verbs and the nouns. Band, start touring, Australia, January. "The band start touring Australia in January."

"The audience clap after every joke. The audience clap after every joke." Which words are being stressed? Audience and clap, every joke. So, the verbs and the nouns. "The audience clap after every joke." And the last one, "the team hope that they win the game. The team hope that they win the game." Which words are being stressed? Team, hope, win and game. The nouns and the verbs. "The team hope that they win the game."

Great job, guys. Remember if you want to listen to this episode as a podcast episode, so the audio, you can review this, you can practise this when you are working, when you are commuting to work, at the gym, outside walking, wherever it is, and you have dead time that you could be filling with English lessons.

Be sure to download my podcast app up here, it is free, and you can listen to this anywhere, any time. Also, if you want to keep learning English with me, check out this episode and I'll see you next time. Bye.