Correcting Common Mistakes: Your vs. You’re | English Grammar Tips with Ms Umi

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YOUR

Now, ‘Your’ is a possessive adjective used to show ownership. Unlike ‘You’re’, it is not a contraction and is usually followed by a noun, which includes gerunds – which is a verb in its present participle form (verb + -ing) that acts like a noun. So how do we use ‘Your’ in a sentence?

Here are some examples:

•  Your hair looks great!
•  I love your top!
•  Has your work made you feel stressed?
•  I appreciate your helping me with the chores.

YOU’RE

‘You’re’ is a combination of two words, ‘You’ and ‘are’ and is what we call a contraction. Basically, it is ‘You are’ but in short form. How do we use ‘You’re’ in a sentence?

• You’re amazing!
• You’re my best friend!
• I think you’re doing an excellent job.
• Make sure you’re in good health before you start training.

If you replace ‘You’re’ with ‘You are’, all these sentences would mean the same

• You are amazing!
• You are my best friend!
• I think you are doing an excellent job.
• Make sure you are in good health before you start training.

One thing you should do is to always reread your writing and mentally replace ‘You’re’ with ‘You are’ to check if you are using the correct version after you are done writing. If the meaning remains the same, then you know that you are using the right one! For instance:

Please put (your / you’re) books on the table neatly.

If I were to replace ‘you’re’ with ‘you are’, then the sentence becomes ‘Please put you are books on the table’, which is definitely wrong! In this case, I should have chosen ‘your’ instead because I am referring to ownership, i.e. your books because the books belong to you.

Now, let’s test your new skills and see if you can identify if ‘Your’ vs ‘You’re’ are used correctly in these sentences!

#1: Your so talented at playing the piano. (X)
Both ‘your’ and ‘you’re’ are incorrectly used in this sentence.
The correct answer should be: You’re so talented at playing the piano.

#2: It’s important you express you’re emotions. (X)
The correct answer should be: It’s important you express your emotions. This is to indicate that the emotions belong to you.

#3: Washing your clothes is necessary. (✔) (This is a correct sentence.)
This answer is correct! You are washing clothes that belong to you.

I hope you now understand the key differences between these two. Before I go, let me sum up what we have learnt today:

• ‘your’ is used when you want to refer to something that belongs to you or to
someone you are talking to
• ‘you’re’ is actually the contraction of ‘you’ and ‘are’
• you can try inserting ‘you are’ into the sentence to check if you have used the
correct term

And that’s all from me today! Hope you’re no longer confused with “Your” vs “You’re”. Look out for our next video in this series! Feel free to let us know in the comments what you think!