How to Fix Easy Mistakes in Grammar

The most common mistake I see in writing is using "your" instead of "you're". Here's the difference:

YOUR - belonging to you
"It's your turn"

YOU'RE - abbreviation of "you are"
"I think you're gorgeous"

Simple, right? When writing a sentence, ask yourself, "what am I actually saying? Am I saying "you are"? What have I written?"

You might find you've written "your" instead of "you're". The difficulty lies in the way the English language is spoken. Ideally, we should be able to tell the difference between the words "your" and "you're" when they're said out loud, but we can't. "Your" should sound like "ore", as in core and "you're" should sound more like "ure" as in pure. However generally, "you're" is pronounced the same way as "your", and this is why it's so easy to use the wrong one.

You will very rarely see people use "you're" instead of "your", it's always the other way around. So as a simple rule of thumb, if you've used "you're", you're probably right to. But if you've used "your", just check it one more time and think about what your sentence is saying.

OK, these might be slightly harder to remember, but here are some useful tips to help you figure out which one you need to use.

THERE - indicating a specific place
"It's over there"

THEIR - belonging to a group of people (as opposed to belonging to one person, ie his and hers)
"They took their cat to the vet"

THEY'RE - abbreviation of "they are"
"I think they're crazy"

In the same way that "your" is often used wrongly, "there" seems to be the word of choice for all 3 of these terms. So here is how you can remember which one you should use for each situation.

There - just remember "here and there". The word "there" contains the word "here", so you'll know if you have the right one.

Their - Remember I said this is the plural of his or hers? Just remember that with the letters in "theirs", you can make the words "his" and "hers". Then you'll know if you're using the right word.

They're - Use the same rule as you would for "you're". Read your sentence and ask yourself "what is the sense of what I'm saying?"

This one is easy once you know how, but why do people always get these mixed up?

Here's why. In school we were taught that if something is possessive, it should have an apostrophe. For example, "John's bike" or "Jane's shoes." So surely, if we want to say an object possesses something, we should use an apostrophe, right?

Wrong.

IT'S - abbreviation of "it is"
"It's a pleasure to meet you"

ITS - belonging to something
"The dog chased its tail"

But the tail belongs to the dog! It should have an apostrophe!

No. In this case (and only in this case), using an apostrophe with "its" means "it is", each and every time.

So once again, read your sentence, and ask yourself "am I saying "it is" or am I saying something belongs to something else?" Only use an apostrophe if you are abbreviating "it is."

No no no no NO!

This next one is my absolute pet hate. And once again, we have the spoken language to blame.

There is no instance when you should use the word "of" after the words would, could or should, unless your sentence starts "this is how to write English very badly."

"If I could have taken the test again, I would have." This is correct.

"If I could of taken the test again, I would of." No no no! This is wrong and bad and evil!!!

This horrible error has crept into English writing because of the way we speak. "Would have" becomes "would've", and before you know it you're saying would of. Don't do it. It's very very bad.

This one might be the hardest to remember, and also one that is least noticed, but it's just as important as the others.

So just remember:

Would've = Would have
Could've = Could have

Remember what it's short for - the "ve" should be a BIG clue. It's "have", not "of".