Learn Dutch: Er zijn veel bomen in de straat naast het gebouw. - There are many trees in the street next to the building.

In Dutch, er is means "there is" and er zijn means "there are". This is called the existential er because it introduces something that exists in a certain place. It works almost exactly the same as in English!

Why do we use zijn here instead of is?

Zijn is the plural form of the verb to be (are). We use it here because the subject we are introducing is veel bomen (many trees), which is plural. If there was only one tree, you would say Er is een boom.

The singular word for tree is boom. Why does bomen only have one o?

This is due to Dutch spelling rules. When you add -en to make boom plural, the word splits into syllables like this: bo-men. Because the o is now at the end of a syllable, it automatically sounds long. We drop the second o because writing two would be unnecessary.

Why does the sentence use de straat but het gebouw?