Seven little words seem to be the most difficult to understand among English speakers online. It seems pointless to even write this blog post because countless others already have. As I thought about it, however, I realized my difference between series would remain incomplete without them.
Here are theĀ 7 words that keep confusing the Internet:
- Your
- Youāre
- There
- Their
- Theyāre
- Its
- Itās
And here they are succinctly explained:
Your vs. youāre
The easy way to remember the difference is that the apostrophe is a clue that youāre is actually two words: you are.
- UseĀ your to talk about something owned: your car, your hot pepper, your kindness
- UseĀ youāreĀ to talk about someone: Youāre cute. Youāre a great guy. Youāre amazing.
There vs. their vs. theyāre
Thereās that apostrophe again, soĀ theyāre is easy enough to distinguish, but there are two others remaining this time. The trick to remembering there is thatĀ there looks like here, and they mean similar things.
- UseĀ there to refer to a location: I would not eat them here or there. I would not eat them anywhere.
- UseĀ their to talk about something owned: their car, their hot pepper, their kindness
- UseĀ theyāre (they are) to talk about someone: Theyāre cute. Theyāre great guys. Theyāre amazing.
Its vs. itās
That apostrophe keeps popping up. Perhaps thereās a pattern here.
- UseĀ its to talk about something owned: its car, its hot pepper, its kindness
- UseĀ itās to talk about something: Itās hot outside. Itās a fantastic restaurant. Itās all up in your face.
Thatās it. Easy as pie.
What words confuse you the most? Comment below, and we may feature them in a future blog post.
Ā
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