 Some ions are not monatomic like those we've seen, but polyatomic meaning they're made up of several atoms bonded together. As with monatomic ions, a polyatomic ion has either too many or too few electrons relative to the number of protons in the atoms, so it has a charge. But for now we don't need to assign the charge to a particular atom, just think of the charge being spread over the whole polyatomic ion. We also don't need to go into how the atoms are joined together just at the moment. However you do need to be able to recognise and remember the formulae, the names and the charges of all of these ions. And they're the most common polyatomic ions that you'll encounter. This particular bit of rote learning is going to serve you well all through chemistry, so put in the work now and you'll feel the joy many times later on. Note that for some of the ions there's a pattern that can help. If the ion ends in 8 ATE like nitrate or chlorate or sulfate, it means that there's oxygen involved. So nitrate is nitrogen and oxygen, NO3 minus. Chlorate is chlorine and oxygen, ClO3 minus. Unfortunately the ATE, the 8, doesn't tell you how many oxygens are involved or what the charge is. That's the bit that you've got to learn.