Showing existence with いる and ある

Introduction

Today, we’re going to learn how to express the existence of someone or something through two special verbs: ある and いる! For example, you’ll be able to say things like “There is a pen” or “I have a friend”, or in my case “I have like two million friends”. sobs Anyways, we’re gonna be dealing with the animate and the inanimate, and no, those aren’t just made-up words from Harry Potter. Ready? Let’s go!

“Existence” with いる and ある

Structure:

For inanimate nouns:

• 

  Noun(が・は)ある・あります
  Example:
  → 鉛筆えんぴつがある。
  ”There is a pencil.” (or, I have a pencil, he has a pencil, etc)

For animate nouns:

• 

  Noun(が・は)いる・います
  Example:
  → 猫ねこがいます。
  ”There is a cat.”