Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[dido4]

Hi there,



The weather in Taiwan and the weather in Canada "is" very different.


1.Is it right to use "is"?

2.Or "is" should be replaced by "are".

3.Or we can use either of them? What is the difference between these two?


thank you

[lotus]

Hi dido4,

The answer is "are." The sentence can be rephrased as "They are very different." It can also be said more commonly as:

"Taiwan's weather and Canada's weather are very different."
Or paraphrased, "Comparison shows that they are different."

Here, we name two things and say they are different.


If we remove "and", and reconstruct the sentence with reference to a comparison, we can use "is":

The weather in Taiwan [in comparison with Canada] is very different.
Taiwan's weather [in comparison with Canada's] is very different.
Taiwan's weather [compared with Canada's] is very different.

We are able to use "is" here because we have a single subject "Taiwan's weather" which is different in comparison.


--lotus