"Televizyonda sadece üzücü haberler var."
Translation:There is only sad news on television.
8 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
2469
"there is only sad news on television" or "there are only sad news on television"? why is the plural wrong in this case?
As far as I know, "news" is always a singular, uncountable noun in English. So it has to take the singular verb form.
I agree with you, however I agree more with Xtofdub. If we were in the past where there was mostly one channel and the main news aired at one time, then this would be correct. But in modern day times, there is an infinite number of channels at various regions of the globe with different points of views targeting different audiences in terms of interest, demographics, political views, religion, ...etc. Almost all of these channels present their own "news" may it be about the economy, planet coservation, technology, history, politics, science and space, films and arts, local interest, ...etc All these different types of "news" -airing from different channels and at different times- seem to have one thing in common, most of them are sad! So here the difference between news singular and news plural is kinda like the difference between "sheep, fish" and "sheeps, fishes" we are talking about various subsets of news!
My point being, both answers should be accepted.
Correct me if I am wrong, we are here to learn.
Good theory, but no: "news" is always used in the singular. So is "sheep", by the way (in which text did you see the word "sheeps"?). One could also argue that, because children come in different colours and sizes and shapes, we could say "childrens" to talk about different types of children. But we don't :-)
- 522
The discussion is not about adding an 's' to news. You do say 'the sheep are' and 'the children are' - right? Same goes for news, news are sad. So there are sad news on television. The answer should be correct.
- 949
Is "haber" generally used in the plural like this? Are there cases where it would be singular?
For crying out loud. !!! Fix it.!!!! "There are only sad news on television" should ge accepted it is correct in emglish and the word in turkish IS IN PLURAL. It is frustrating for learners to be guessing.