"There is several Jones sisters - this is borderline to me; it should be 'are'."

You managed to hit on one of the more difficult exceptions with this line. I'm still not sure why they call them exceptions because they are more common than examples that follow the rules, but I digress.

In your example, 'there is' links to 'several'; the sisters have nothing to do with the verb and pronoun, they are merely descriptive adjectives. What this means is it should read 'There are' because several is always, always, always plural.

Somewhere exists a list of words that are variously singular and/or plural and many native American speakers simply cannot get them right. I'd have to find my old (not Olde) English textbook to properly list them.


Edited for punctuation, oh the irony.

It's versus Its, the Apostrophe S [an album by Frank Zappa too], a refresher course by Grammar Girl: http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/apostrophe-1.aspx

Affect and Effect are two words I struggle with, so I try to avoid using them. Cheating I know, but it's easier!

English must be one of the hardest languages to learn as a 2nd language. I'm always impressed when I see people from non-english speaking countries posting in english. Infact, sometimes their english is better than a native english speakers! :)

English is my mother tongue but I regularly find myself referring to the dictionary. The main reason for this is my dislike of "poor English" written by a native speaker. This may make me what has become known as a Grammar Nazi.

I spent some time in Germany many years ago but, although I retain the ability to read that language, I seem to be unable to properly construct a sentence either verbally or written. I admire the efforts of those of you here who do so well with English even when, to you, it is a second language.

I think it's admirable that people keep educating and hammering on the use of proper English, or any language. Since the introduction of forums, text messaging, WhatsApp, Twitter etcetera, correct spelling has taken a turn for the worse. I mean, even punctuation and capitals seem to be gone nowadays.
As to learning English as a second language, it's hard not to pick up English as you grow up, unless you don't watch movies, listen to music or use the internet. It's just everywhere in our everyday lives.

P.S.: I'm sure I made some mistakes in this post, but don't blame me, I'm dutch.