“Information is” / “informations are” – is information plural or singular in English?

by Jakub Marian

Tip: See my list of the Most Common Mistakes in English. It will teach you how to avoid mis­takes with com­mas, pre­pos­i­tions, ir­reg­u­lar verbs, and much more.

This is one of the most common mistakes among English learners. There’s nothing wrong with saying “Informationen” in German or “informations” in French, both being the plural form of “information”. In English, however, the word is uncountable, i.e. there is no plural form of it. The singular form already expresses the same idea as “informations” in other languages:

correct I don’t have enough information.
wrong I don’t have enough informations.

Uncountability of the word “information” also implies that you can’t say “an information”. If you want to express that you are speaking about “one information”, you can use the expression “a piece of information”.

correct That’s an interesting piece of information.
correct That’s interesting information. (notice no “an”)
wrong That’s an interesting information.

And, of course, since information is a singular noun, we use singular verb forms after it (e.g. “is”, “does”, “has”):

correct The information is not correct.
wrong The information are not correct.

This article was based on my guide to the most common mistakes in English, which explains many similar topics. Why don’t you check it out?

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