Correct Use of THERE, THEIR, THEY'RE | What's the Difference? | Commonly Confused Words

There, their, they’re – it sounds like I just said one word three times but those

are actually three different words.

In this lesson, I will show you how to use these confusing words correctly.

As always, there is a quiz at the end of the video to test your understanding.

Now before we talk about the use of these words, a quick note on pronunciation: all

three of these are pronounced /ðer/ - the pronunciation is the same, keep that in mind.

OK, so let’s talk about the first word – ‘t’ ‘h’ ‘e’ ‘r’ ‘e’.

This word is an adverb which means ‘that place’.

Take this sentence – “The restaurant is over there.”

It means the restaurant is in that place.

So this is the opposite of ‘here’ which means ‘in this place’.

In fact, you can easily remember this spelling – ‘t’ ‘h’ ‘e’ ‘r’ ‘e’

– if you notice that it has ‘here’ inside of it.

Now, the word ‘there’ has another common use.

This is to introduce the subject of a sentence.

For example, “There are four apples in the bag.”

You see that the subject of the sentence is really ‘apples’ and ‘there’ is just

used as a dummy subject to introduce ‘apples’.

These are the two uses of there with ‘t’ ‘h’ ‘e’ ‘r’ ‘e’.

Let’s move on to the second word – ‘their’ spelled ‘t’ ‘h’ ‘e’ ‘i’ ‘r’.

This word is the possessive form of ‘they’.

What does possessive mean?

Well, it means that the word shows ownership or relationship.

Here’s a chart showing these forms.

The possessive form of ‘I’ is ‘my’.

For ‘you’ it’s ‘your’, ‘we’ – ‘our’, ‘he’ – ‘his’, ‘she’

– ‘her’, ‘it’ – ‘its’ and for ‘they’ it’s ‘their’.

Here’s an example: “The children took their toys outside to play.”

In this sentence, ‘their’ shows ownership – the toys belong to the children.

And in the next sentence: “Teachers should be friendly to their students.”, ‘their’

shows relationship here – obviously, teachers don’t own their students.

This spelling can be easily remembered if you see that the possessive forms ‘your’,

‘our’, ‘her’ and ‘their’ all have an ‘r’ and the ‘r’ is the last letter

in these words.

OK, let’s now move on to the last word, ‘they’re’ spelled ‘t’, ‘h’,

‘e’, ‘y’, apostrophe, ‘r’, ‘e’.

The apostrophe should tell you immediately that this is a contraction – that is we

have shortened and combined two words, which are ‘they’ and ‘are’.

This form is used in two ways – the first is when ‘are’ is used as a linking verb

with a noun or adjective.

For example, “They’re dancers.”

“They’re tired.”

What I’m saying here is “They are dancers.”

and “They are tired” but again, when we speak naturally, we just say ‘they’re’.

The second use is with a verb in its –ing form.

In this use, ‘are’ is a helping verb.

Here’s a sentence: “They’re playing football in the garden.”

This means “They are playing football in the garden” and it’s in the present continuous

tense.

It shows an action that is happening right now.

You can remember this spelling with the apostrophe which shows that there are two words combined

– ‘they’ and ‘are’.

OK let’s do a quick recap.

‘T’ ‘h’ ‘e’ ‘r’ ‘e’ means ‘that place’ and the key to remember it

is that the word has ‘here’ inside of it.

‘T ’ ‘h’ ‘e’ ‘i’ ‘r’ is the possessive form of ‘they’.

The key to remember is that the forms ‘our’, ‘your’, ‘her’ and ‘their’ end

with the letter ‘r’.

And finally, ‘t’ ‘h’ ‘e’ ‘y’ apostrophe ‘r’ ‘e’ means ‘they are’

and the key is that the apostrophe shows the contraction of the two words.

Alright, it’s now time for the quiz to see if you can use the three spellings correctly.

There are six sentences on the screen.

In each one, I want you to fill in the blanks with the correct word.

Stop the video, think about your answers, then play the video again and check.

Alright, here are the answers.

Let me know how many you got correct in the comments.

If you’re not sure about any of these, you can ask me in the comments section as well.

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Happy learning and I will see you in another lesson soon.