Can ‘a country’ be considered as a collective noun and take a plural verb? No Can you use "China are" in a sentence? Yes, of course. . "China" can refer to a group of people, for example a football team. The final of the tournament is tonight. China are the favourites. = The Chinese team, or people. England are the underdogs. Germany have the crowds behind them.

Hi Niwantha, no we cannot do this. The country always takes the singular verb as there is only one of them. We would use are in sentences that refer to more than one country e.g. There are a lot of Spanish speaking countries in South America.

No. No countries I'm aware of take a plural verb. Even "Solomon Islands" takes a singular verb. The Solomon Islands is a beautiful country. BUT, when you are referring to the 'islands' and not the nation, then plural is used. "The Solomon islands are beautiful"

Thanks Glenn!

Depends if you're using US or British English. It may even vary between Commonwealth countries. This doesn't just apply to countries, but also to companies. In British English they will say "BMW are releasing two new models this year", while in the US they will say "BMW is releasing two new models this year". In other words, a lot of "grammatical" issues are actually just stylistic.