There is and There are

There is and There are

There is and There are are constructions which are very common in the English language.

First of all, let's look at the formation of the constructions.

• We use There is with singular nouns.

There is a tomato in the fridge.
There isn't a tomato in the fridge.
Is there a tomato in the fridge?
Yes, there is. or No, there isn't.

• Also we use There is with uncountable nouns.

There is some tomato juice in the fridge.
There isn't any tomato juice in the fridge.
Is there any tomato juice in the fridge?
Yes, there is. Or No, there isn't.

• We use There are with plural nouns.

There are ten tomatoes in the fridge.
There aren't any tomatoes in the fridge.
Are there any tomatoes in the fridge?
Yes, there are. Or No, there aren't.

If we want to ask a wh- question, anyway we have to keep the construction.

How many tomatoes are there in the fridge?

We use There is and There are to say that something exists, to make stress on the place or simply to describe a place.

Is there any milk left?
We ask this question to find out about the existence of milk.

There isn't any milk on the table, but there is some in the fridge.
We want to stress that we can find some milk in the fridge and not the other place.

There are two chairs, a table, a sofa and some plants in the room.
We describe the room and the construction there is/there are helps us.

Please, note that we use There is and not there are to list objects if the first one is singular.

There is a lamp, a laptop and three notebooks on the table.
Although there are five objects on the table we use there is because the first object a lamp is singular.

I hope the information was useful for you, try to use There is/There are more often in your speech in appropriate situations, and you will notice that you sound more natural.