An existential clause is a clause that begins with "there" and follows with the verb "to be". As the name suggests, its purpose is to indicate existence. Here are some examples:

     There are almost 1500 students at my school.

     There is someone at the door.

When using existential clauses, it is always important to pay attention to the complement. The following example is incorrectly written:

     There was many problems with my computer.

The complement here is many problems with my computer, which is a plural complement. As such, the verb to be is not properly inflected. The proper inflection should be were:

     There were many problems with my computer.

A run-on sentence is a sentence with two independent clauses with no punctuation in between:

     I opened the door there was nobody in the room.

The first clause, I opened the door, is an independent clause, as is There was nobody in the room. In other words, both can be sentences by themselves. However, there is no punctuation in between. The proper punctuation mark that we need in between these clauses is a period:

     I opened the door. There was nobody in the room.

Alternatively, we can use a comma and conjunction:

     I opened the door, but there was nobody in the room.

A relative pronoun is a word that connects a phrase to a noun it is trying to describe. In English, relative pronouns include that, which, who, whose, whom, when, and where. Here are some examples:

     Eric Spoto is a powerlifter who once held the world's bench press record.

     iPhone XR is the latest iPhone that Apple released.

     The 1930s was a decade when many people suffered unemployment.

Notice that in both examples, the phrase after the relative pronoun describes the noun that came before it. A common mistake that students make is they omit relative pronouns:

     Yesterday, I went to the sushi restaurant I like the most.

     Yesterday, I went to the sushi restaurant that I like the most.

Although many people speak in the manner of the the first sentence, it is actually not grammatically correct. The that is necessary.

Whenever we say that a sentence is not complete, what do we really mean? What makes a sentence incomplete? Have a look at the following examples:

     Although she is of Chinese decent.

     Which I was not aware of.

     Because he has a learning disability.

The examples above are all clauses that have either a transition word or conjunction at the beginning. As such, they cannot stand alone as sentences. It may be common for us to use these when speaking, but in formal writing, these are not complete sentences. To make them complete, we need to add another clause either before or after them:

     Although she is of Chinese decent, Victoria was born and raised in Canada.

     Johnson had already switched schools, which I was not aware of.

     Adam struggles in school because he has a learning disability.

In the simple past tense, the verb "be" would be as follows:

     I was
     You were
     He/she/it was
     We were
     They were

However, when we use the expression if, we would always conjugate the verb be as were, no matter the subject:

     If I were
     If he/she/it were

As such, If I were is always the proper grammatical expression:

     If it was not for Christina's help, I would not have successfully run the event. (Incorrect)

     If it were not for Christina's help, I would not have successfully run the event. (Correct)

In the previous post, we looked at uncountable and countable nouns. Now that we know what they are and how we use them, it is realistically not difficult to understand the difference between "much" and "many". Simply put, we use "much" for uncountable nouns, and "many" for countable nouns:

     Jake made many trips to the washroom because he drank too much water.

In the example above, trip is countable, so we use many as its quantifier. Water is not countable, so we would use much to quantify it.

What do we mean when we say a noun is countable or not countable? Very simply, it means whether we can count it or not. For example:

     Book is a countable noun because you can say one book, two books, three books, etc.

     Education is not a countable noun because you cannot say one education, two educations, three educations.

As you can probably see, you cannot pluralize a noun that is uncountable:

     He has received lots of educations. (Incorrect)

     He has received a lot of education. (Correct)

 In English, an article is a type of determiner that is used immediately before a noun to indicate its definiteness. Indefinite articles include a, which is used before words beginning with consonant sounds, and an, which is used before words beginning with vowel sounds:

     A book

     A pencil

     An eraser

The definite article would be the:

     The book

     The pencil

     The eraser

There are many nouns in English that do require an article in front in order for the expression to be grammatical:

     I went to grocery store yesterday. (Incorrect)

     I went to the grocery store yesterday. (Correct)

     Monica is accountant. (Incorrect)

     Monica is an accountant. (Correct)