Five things
Look out of the nearest window. Say five things you can see, each in a full sentence beginning There is… or There are…
Quick and low-stakes. We want the structure warm before we examine it.
Before you look out the window, a quick check.
1. Which is correct?
How a designer inventories a site
Walking the Wooster Avenue back yard
There is a concrete pad directly behind the house, and there are two concrete steps down from it to the lower level. Along the north boundary there are three rock retaining walls, none of them higher than about eighteen inches. There is a wood deck above the pad, cantilevered over it, and there is a trench drain at the foot of the steps. Against the west fence there is a stack of concrete pavers left over from an earlier project. There is no irrigation in the rear yard at all.
Note what the sentences do. Each one either introduces something for the first time, or places it relative to something already introduced. That is the whole job of an existing-conditions walkthrough.
Notice. Count how many sentences begin with There is or There are, and how many begin with a preposition phrase instead — Along the north boundary…, Against the west fence…. Why would a designer move the preposition to the front?
Check what you noticed.
1. Why does a designer front the preposition ("Along the north boundary…") instead of always starting with "There is"?
2. How many rock retaining walls are along the north boundary in the Wooster Avenue text?
There is / there are, and where things sit
Agreement
| Form | Use | Example from a real sheet |
|---|---|---|
| There is + singular | One thing | There is a curb ramp at the corner. |
| There is + uncountable | Material, not objects | There is gravel along the side path. |
| There are + plural | More than one | There are four retaining walls. |
| There is no / There are no | Absence — very common on existing sheets | There is no irrigation in the rear yard. |
| There used to be | Removed before you arrived | There used to be a shed here. |
The Portuguese interference. Tem uma calçada de concreto maps onto two different English sentences, and only one of them is right here:
- ✓ There is a concrete sidewalk. — the sidewalk exists
- ✗ It has a concrete sidewalk. — grammatical, but says the property possesses it, which is a different claim and sounds odd in a site description
- ✗ Have a concrete sidewalk. — this is the one to kill. It is the single most common Brazilian-Portuguese transfer error in site description.
Placing things
These do the real work. Listen to each and say it back.
Match each form to what it is used for.
Inventory and place
Complete the walkthrough. Use is, are, or a preposition from Phase 03.
There an asphalt driveway on the south side of the lot. There two flowering cherry trees near the front door, one of them leaning badly. the rear boundary there are four dry-stacked boulder walls. There gravel between them rather than planting. There no surface drain at the low point, which is why the lower patio floods.
Match each preposition phrase to the situation it fits. Click the phrase, then its situation.
Front to rear, out loud
Task card
The Wooster Avenue back yard, from the labels alone
Walk the site verbally from the street to the rear boundary. Introduce each thing once with there is/are, then place the next thing relative to it.
- Group by location, not by object type. Everything at the front, then everything at the side, then the rear.
- Use at least four different preposition phrases from Phase 03.
- Finish with one thing that is not there: “There is no…”
Before you walk the Wooster Avenue yard out loud, put these four sentences back in a front-to-rear order.
Two things to fix
Each sentence has one error. Rewrite it correctly.
1. Have a concrete driveway on the left side.
2. There is four retaining walls along the boundary.
3. There are a gravel between the walls.
4. The deck is in above of the concrete pad.
Before the next lesson
Homework. Record yourself walking one of your own site plans, front to rear, in ninety seconds. Count how many times you say there is or there are. If it is more than six, you are not grouping by location yet — try again.
One check before you go.
1. What should tell you to try the homework recording again?