Grammar 101: They're, There and Their

Grammar 101: They're, There and Their

Previously:

https://my.wealthyaffiliate.com/phil1944/blog/feeling-youre-...

https://my.wealthyaffiliate.com/phil1944/blog/grammar-101-it...

https://my.wealthyaffiliate.com/phil1944/blog/grammar-101-yo...

A Few Simple Rules Are All You Need

There's no doubt that, in its entirety, English grammar is complex, especially for someone learning English as a second language.

But...

If you're a native English speaker and just want to avoid common grammatical errors in your writing (such as blog posts on your website) there are only a handful of rules that you need to memorize.

So this series of posts is for those who'd like to ditch the Grammarly crutch and just know what's right and what's not.

Here's the third one:

They're, There and Their

Although more complex that the previous ones I've covered, because there's three of them, this may be all you need to remember:

"See the family over there? They're getting into their car."

Just like "it's" and "you're", "they're" is an abbreviation. It's short for "they are". So just substitute "they are" for "they're" and ask yourself does it make sense.

So in the previous sentence, "they're getting into their car" reads "they are getting into their car", which is obviously correct.

"their", on the other hand, is a possessive. It's the plural version of "his" and "her" and will always be followed by the thing being owned. So "his car", "her car" and "their car".

"there" is for everything else. Most of the time, it's geographic. It refers to the place where something is. For example, "it's over there", "there it is, underneath the table".

It can also be part of an abbreviation, as in "there's a cafe a block from here".

And used to comfort someone, "there, there, you'll feel better tomorrow".

So if it's not an abbreviation for "they are" and it's not owning something, use "there".

I hope this helps.