It's vs Its | Contraction vs Possessive | Difference in Meaning and Grammar with Examples

Hey guys.

Look at this sentence.

And now look at that sentence.

One of them is wrong.

If you don't know which one is wrong, I suggest you keep watching.

Hello guys my name is Fanny and in this video I'm gonna talk to you about a major

spelling mistake in English.

Among students, but also, among native speakers.

It's a difference between 'it's' meaning 'it is'.

And 'its' being the possessive adjective.

Okay let's and take a few sentences  and I'm sure you'll get it.

So we have 'It's a sunny day'.

In this case 'it's' is the verb 'to be'.

So it means 'It is a sunny day'.

If we take the second sentence:

'The dog ate its food'.

This is not the verb 'to be'.

It's the possessive adjectives  for an object or an animal.

So the food belongs to the dog. It is its food.

Okay so these are two different cases

but sometimes when we write, we confuse the two,

and we will write the dog ate it's food with apostrophe s.

you know getting confused  between its possessive adjectives

and it's being the contraction  of the verb 'to be'.

This is a very common mistake.

if we take for example the sentence:

'Its my pen'.

Now look at the sentence.

What do you think?

Is this right? Or is this the wrong spelling?

Well it's wrong.

'It's my pen' is the verb 'to be'.

Now the best tip that I can give you

if you get confused, try and say it with the full form.

Try and say 'It is'.

If it makes sense, then it's the contraction of the verb 'to be'

and it should be apostrophe 's'.

If it doesn't make sense, then it's probably the possessive adjective.

So for example, I can say, 'It is a sunny day'.

That makes sense.

Can I say the dog ate it is food?

No, I can't. that doesn't make any sense.

Okay if I say, 'It's my pen',

What do you think? Can I say 'It is my pen'?

I can.

So it's actually the  contraction of the verb 'to be'.

So it should be 'it' + apostrophe 's' + my pen.

And just so you know one last thing.

Be careful because sometimes in some cases

'it's' can also be the contraction of  the verb 'to have' and not 'to be'.

If we take those two sentences:

It's been great to meet you.

It means - It has been great to meet you.

'It's got four legs' means it has got four legs.

Okay so the verb in those cases is 'to have' so be careful.

Okay guys I hope you now understand the difference

between the contraction of the verb 'to be' and the possessive adjective 'its'.

Thank you for watching the video.

Make sure you watch the other videos as well.

Thank you guys for watching my video.

I hope you liked it.

And if you did, please show us your support.

Click 'like'.

Subscribe to the channel.

Put your comments below.

And share with your friends.

See you.