This is an interesting difference between British and American English. Here's an advance warning. If you a) want to make life easy for yourself and/or b) prefer to learn American English you should leave this page now. Go and read a good book. Enjoy the sunshine. Watch some football. If not... read on. Unlike in AmE, where a singular collective noun ( such as group, team, family, government, police, council, committee) is always grammatically singular, in BrE these words can be either singular or plural. If you are considering the group as a single entity, you use a singular verb ( is, does, has); if you are talking about the individuals which make up this group, you use a plural verb (are, do, have). For example: 1.Liverpool is leading 1-0 Here, "Liverpool" is treated as a singular noun. This is because you are comparing the success of one club with another. 2.Liverpool are attacking again. Here, "Liverpool" is treated as a plural noun, because you are thinking about the individual players who are attacking. Likewise, "The BBC is showing..." refers to the channel (singular), whereas "The BBC are planning..." refers to the people who are making these plans. "My family isn't poor" refers to the financial state of the family as a whole (singular), while "My family are normal" refers to the individual members of the family. Still confused? Never mind. For a start, these examples are fairly random - as a British English speaker, I'd be quite happy to have all of them in the plural (Liverpool are leading/My family aren't poor/The BBC are showing). Meanwhile, an AmE speaker - like your first answerer Craig Hall from the US - would change them all to singular verbs ('is' throughout). And, finally, you - as a Chinese speaker - have more important things to worry about when it comes to noun/verb agreements than this one little anomaly. Take my advice. Don't worry about it.

Hi there! In English, there are some nouns which we can use in singular and plural. It depends on what we want to say about the nouns: do we refer to them as one or are we looking at the individuals who form a part of the group? A good example is The United States: if we refer to the country, we'll use the verb in singular. But, if we refer to its government (a lot of people), we'd use the plural form of the verb. The same with The Netherlands. Another example is the noun 'team'. If we refer to the team as one group, we use the singular form. But, if we're talking about the different individuals who form a part of the team, we'd use the plural form. Basically, it all depends on how you want to talk about the noun. Do you refer to the noun as a collection of individuals or do you see the noun as one? I hope this helps, Regards Karen

American English treats a group as singular. (The boys are playing ball. The group of boys is playing ball. The group is playing ball.) British English treats a group as plural. (The boys are playing ball. The group of boys are playing ball. The group are playing ball.) If you check American and British web sites for business news and sports news, this will be clear.

Just in case this whole issue wasn't confusing enough: I (from the U.S.) was taught that collective nouns can take singular or plural verbs depending on the situation, e.g., "The orchestra take their seats." Perhaps the difference here between U.K. English and U.S. English is one of degree. Admittedly, I don't see too many examples like the one I gave.

You are They are we are (Plural) are He is She is it is ( singular) is I am In your situation, Don't waste your time with those things.