Learn Swedish: Det finns en vacker fontän i parken. - There is a beautiful fountain in the park.

In Swedish, you cannot use där är to simply state that something exists. Där är is only used when you are pointing out a specific physical location, like "over there is the park". To say that something exists in a general sense, we always use the dummy subject det with the verb finns.

Does det finns change if we are talking about more than one fountain?

No, and this makes it easier than English! While English switches between "there is" and "there are", Swedish uses det finns for both singular and plural. For example, "There are two beautiful fountains" would be Det finns två vackra fontäner.

Why does the verb finns end in an s?

It comes from the verb att finna which means "to find". The s at the end makes it a passive verb. So, det finns literally translates to "it is found". In everyday Swedish, it is just used as a fixed phrase meaning "there is" or "there are".

Why is the adjective written as vacker instead of vackert?

Adjectives must match the gender of the noun they describe. Because fontän is an en-word, we use the basic form vacker. If we were describing a singular ett-word like ett träd (a tree), we would add a t to make it vackert.