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A post says

I like living in London because it’s where most of my family members and friends live and there have lots of things to do here.

I guess the following sentence means the same thing as the one above

... there are lots of things to do here

Are "there are" and "there have" interchangeable?

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    There have is not normally grammatical, except in a perfect construction eg There have been The post you quite is either an error, or written by a non-native speaker.
    – Colin Fine
    May 9, 2020 at 8:09
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    Having looked: it's clearly a mistake. I think it should be they have lots of things to do here.
    – Colin Fine
    May 9, 2020 at 8:11
  • You also need a comma before "and there are lots of things ..."
    – AIQ
    May 9, 2020 at 9:35

1 Answer 1

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You are right, that sentence should have been

... there are lots of things to do here

as you mentioned. What @ColinFine says in the comments:

... they have lots of things to do here

is grammatically correct but makes less sense; why would one like living in London when their family and friends have a lot of things to do there?

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  • Do you find the use of "here" at the very end a bit odd? OP said " ... it’s where ..." which is usually used when the person speaking is not in that place. If they were in that place, "... this is where ..." would make more sense, I guess. "I like living in London because this is where most of my family members and friends live, and we have lots of things to do here." Or "I like living in London because it’s where most of my family members and friends live, and there are lots of things to do there." I know this isn't relevant but for some reason it's bugging me.
    – AIQ
    May 9, 2020 at 9:42
  • That's a little bit odd indeed, but I can certainly see it happen while speaking. It's quite a long sentence after all.
    – Glorfindel
    May 9, 2020 at 9:46

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