'Information', 'homework', 'advice': English uncountables that are plural in German
In English you can't say informations, homeworks or furnitures. These nouns are uncountable, so they stay singular and take a singular verb: the news is bad. In German, many of their counterparts are ordinary countable nouns. They have a normal plural, and that plural is often the everyday form: Informationen, Hausaufgaben, Möbel, Nachrichten, Ratschläge.
English speakers tend to copy their own grammar. They say die Information ist when they mean a whole bundle of facts, or die Nachrichten ist because news is sounds right. In German, a plural noun needs a plural verb, so it's die Nachrichten sind.
German thinks of these things as separate units. Hausaufgaben is a set of tasks, Informationen is a set of facts, and Nudeln is a set of individual noodles. When you mean "some" or "all of it", use the plural and a plural verb: sind, waren, gibt es viele.
Rule of thumb: if English says "a piece of" or "some", German usually just uses the plural. English "a piece of advice" is simply ein Ratschlag in German.
Hausaufgaben means the tasks you get for homework. Möbel is almost always plural. For one single item, say Möbelstück.
Lebensmittel (food, groceries), Nudeln (pasta) and Meeresfrüchte (seafood) are all plural in normal use.
Several words work this way: Information, Neuigkeit (a new piece of information), Nachrichten (the news on TV or radio) and Falschinformation (misinformation). All of them are normally plural when you mean "some" or "a lot".
You give Ratschläge, make Fortschritte, gain Erfahrungen and have Kenntnisse. The last one often appears in compounds like Deutschkenntnisse.
Beweise (evidence), Einnahmen (revenue), Zinsen (interest) and Immobilien (real estate) are normally plural.
Each flash of lightning is ein Blitz. Dandruff is Schuppen (little flakes). Headwear is counted as items: Kopfbedeckungen.
The singular is not wrong. It just means one unit:
- eine Information is one single fact, and eine Hausaufgabe is one exercise.
- eine Nachricht usually means a message, for example on your phone. For the TV news, use the plural Nachrichten.
- ein Beweis is one piece of evidence.
- Fortschritt in the singular is also used for progress in general, as in der technische Fortschritt (technological progress).
- Rat also means advice, but it has no normal plural. When you mean several pieces of advice, say Ratschläge.
You may also meet Auskünfte (information you get at a counter or by phone), which follows the same pattern. The typical mistake is keeping the verb singular: say die Informationen sind, not die Information ist.
When an English noun has no plural (information, homework, furniture, news, advice, progress, evidence), don't assume German works the same way. German often counts these things and uses the plural as the normal form: Informationen, Hausaufgaben, Möbel, Nachrichten, Ratschläge. With a plural noun, the verb must be plural too.