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Hi everybody. My name is Alicia. In this lesson, we're going to look at how to use apostrophes. Let's get started. Okay, in this lesson, I want to talk about two basic uses of the apostrophe. The things I'm going to talk about in this lesson will cover most basic uses of the apostrophe. There are two categories of use. We're going to look at showing possession, and we're going to look at contractions to show the missing letters in words. Let's start by showing possession with apostrophes. So, to show possession with an apostrophe, you can use apostrophe s after a noun. So, this expresses that something belongs to the noun. So, let's look at
some very basic examples of this. First, my teacher's pen. In this example, we have my teacher as the noun that we have to show possession for. We have the apostrophe here, and then it's followed by s. Next is pen. This shows that the pen is owned by my teacher. We can use apostrophe s to demonstrate this. Let's look at the next example. His sister's car. In this sentence, sister is the person owning something, or rather, his sister. So, again, apostrophe s shows the ownership in this situation. The car is owned by his sister.
Let's look at the last basic example. It's my father's wallet. Again, we have apostrophe s after the owner of the object. So, here, my father is the owner of the wallet. So, we can use apostrophe s to show ownership in this way. But, there are some very important rules to keep in mind to make sure that you always express this ownership clearly and correctly. So, let's take a look at two key rules for you to follow. Okay. First, number one. If it's a singular noun, so this means if you want to show the possession of something that is a singular noun, that means just one thing or just one person, add apostrophe s to make it plural.
Okay? This is true even if the singular noun ends in s. So, this part right here is sometimes confusing even for native speakers. You learn sometimes I shouldn't put another s after the noun. When should I do that? I don't know. So, this is the rule. So, if it's a singular noun, add apostrophe s to make it plural. So, let's look at some examples of this. First, the business's plan. In this situation, is our noun. We want to express something that is owned by the business. So, business ends with an s, but it's a singular noun, one business, right? We still have to add apostrophe s to make it plural. I'm sorry, we still have to add apostrophe s to show ownership. This
is a singular noun. We're not making it plural here. The business's plan. So, this shows the plan owned by the business. Okay? Let's look at another example of this. His bus's schedule. So, again, bus is a singular noun that ends with s. We still have to follow this rule. We add apostrophe s after the bus to show ownership. So, this schedule belongs to the bus or his bus in this case. So, it's some kind of connection we're showing here. Here's one more example of this s rule. Her dress's color. So, again, dress is our singular noun. It ends in s. We still have to put \{apostrophe\} s to show ownership. So, in this case, the dress doesn't actually
own the color, of course, but the color is a quality that belongs to the dress. So, even if your singular noun ends in s, you need to put an \{apostrophe\} s after it to show possession, to show ownership. We saw the same thing up here. So, these singular nouns do not end in s, but we have to follow the same rule. So, this one is an easy one, right? If you're just talking about one of something, one noun, just put \{apostrophe\} s after it to show ownership. Okay, great. So, let's continue on to rule number two. Rule number two is a little bit trickier than rule number one. So, let's take a look. Okay, for rule number two, if it's a plural noun, so plural means more than one of something. If it's a plural noun,
use an \{apostrophe\} after the s. That means no additional s after it, unless the plural noun does not end in s. So, this is kind of tricky. Let's break down what this means. So, plural nouns, generally, when we create a plural noun, we simply add s to the end of the noun to make it plural, right? Like teacher becomes teachers, right? Or sister becomes sisters, or father becomes fathers, right? More than one of something. We add an s to the end of it. So, if it's a plural noun that follows this rule, just add an \{apostrophe\} after the s. You don't need to add \{apostrophe\} plus s, just one \{apostrophe\}. And it's done it's finished it's good.
Unless, however, there is an exception. Unless the plural noun doesn't end in s. So, there are some plural nouns that don't end in s, right? They're special nouns, right? So, we'll see an example of this here. So, let's take a look at these kinds of examples that we have and break down what's happening. So, first one, my parents' house. So, in this example, my parents is the noun. This is the plural noun, two people, parents, right? And we have an apostrophe after the s. In this situation, there's no extra s after this because it follows this rule. So, the plural noun parents, in this case, just gets an apostrophe here like this, okay? So, my parents' house. This shows the house
that belongs to my parents, okay? Let's look at the next example. The next example, our children's grades. So, this is an example of the exception here. So, children is an example of a plural noun that does not end in s, right? We have one child, two children, right? So, this is a plural noun that does not end in s. In this situation, we need to use apostrophe s just as we did with rule number one, right? So, in this situation, when you have a plural noun that doesn't end in s, make sure to add that apostrophe s. So, if you want to talk about other things like mice, for example, so the mice's something, we need to add that apostrophe s. So, this is a good one to keep in mind when
you're writing a sentence that uses those plural nouns that are kind of irregular, okay? Let's go to the last example, the students' party. So, here again, we have a regular plural noun. It's just student plus s, right? Students. We again put the apostrophe after students. No additional s because it follows the basic rule right here. So, no exception in this case. So, keep this one in mind. This one requires a little bit more thought. Just consider that s at the end. Plural noun or singular noun, those are kind of the two things it's important to keep in mind with this.
Okay. So, this is what I want to talk about for showing possession, using apostrophes to show possession. Let's go now to part two. So, the other part of today's lesson is using apostrophes to show contraction. So, a contraction is the short form or the reduced form of two words generally. So, we use apostrophes to show or to kind of represent missing letters. That's one way that you can think of the apostrophe use here. So, apostrophes can be used to show the missing letters in words. So, what does this mean? Let's take a look at some examples. For example, when we write do not in the reduced form or the contracted form, we use this spelling, right? Don't. d o n apostrophe t. So,
you can think of this apostrophe as kind of a replacement for the letter that's missing, right? So, we have do not. O is missing here. It's kind of like we're showing the O is gone with the apostrophe. So, don't. Here's another example. We are. We are becomes we're, right? So, again, we have a letter missing. In this case, it's the A. We are becomes we're. So, the apostrophe shows where that letter used to be. One more example. I am. This becomes I'm. Again, we have a missing letter. The A used to be right here. We have an apostrophe there instead. So, apostrophes can be used in this way to show that letters are missing from a word. So, these are extremely
common. You probably know about these already, but I also want to talk about another use that's typically done in books and other stories, those kinds of things. Sometimes, this apostrophe, this missing letter apostrophe is used at the end of a word or sometimes even in the middle. It's a little bit rare. Usually, this is at the end of a word. But sometimes, you'll see an apostrophe at the end of a word to express a way of speaking. So, this kind of sends tends to sound a little more casual or sometimes this is used to indicate like a character's certain way of speaking. So, let's look at some examples so you can see what I mean here. Here's one.
I'm thinking about what to make for dinner. So, first we have this contracted form, right? The apostrophe here. And then we have this thinking, thinking. Here, the apostrophe is at the end of the word. So, we tend to see this used a lot in ing verbs actually, verbs that end in ing to show that the g sound is not clearly pronounced. So, I'm thinking about what to make for dinner. So, this thinking is a little bit different from thinking, right? I'm thinking about what to make for dinner would be the standard way to say this, right? But this thinking sounds a little bit more casual. People may choose to use this kind of thinking to express a
certain kind of casual level of speaking, or to express a kind of accent, something like that. So, that's what this apostrophe at the end of an ing verb means. It means that g sound is missing. Let's look at another example. We've been walking for hours. So, here again we have this basic contraction, we've have, we've been walking for hours. So, again, there's this apostrophe at the end of this ing word, right? And the g is missing. So, the apostrophe is showing us something is missing and we've cut the word off early. So, walking becomes walking, walking. We've been walking for hours. So, this expresses a kind of rough or casual manner of speaking. One more.
You're working hard. You might hear people say this to you at work, like your co-workers might make this comment to you. You're working hard. Again, we have a basic contraction here, you're, you are, right? And here, working. So, the standard spelling is working with a g at the end. We have this apostrophe here that shows something is missing. You're working hard. So, this sounds kind of more casual, a little more friendly than you're working hard, okay? So, that's what you might see occasionally. Usually, we see this in text like stories and maybe novels, maybe short stories or essays, that kind of thing. But, oftentimes, um people like to speak this way and sometimes they want to text
that way as well, too. So, if you see this in like a text message or something, that's what this apostrophe at the end of the word means. And as I said, you might see it in the middle, I suppose, in certain places. You might even see it at the very beginning of a word, but that's an indicator, that's a sign that someone has cut off usually like a letter or something like that, a very small sound, and they're showing that with the apostrophe. Okay, great. So, those are the two key points that I want to talk about for this lesson. We use apostrophes to show possession, and we use apostrophes for contractions to show missing letters. I want to finish this lesson by covering a very common
couple of questions, some very common errors, some problem points for learners and for native speakers. This question box right here shows them. They are the differences between it's with an apostrophe, it's with no apostrophe, and whose with an apostrophe s and whose h o s e at the end here. What is the difference? So, let's talk about it's and it's first. i t apostrophe s means it is. i t no apostrophe s is the possessive. So, this is an exception to what I talked about over here. Of course, that's like kind of hard for you to remember, I know, but thankfully, it's just this one. There's only one that you need to remember this exception for. So, it's with no apostrophe is the possessive form, okay? It is this it
with an apostrophe s at the end. So, this is one tricky one to remember. Okay? Then, the second one is who's who's question. So, H I'm sorry, w h o apostrophe s means who is. w h o s e is the possessive. So, whose bag is this? Right? We're asking about someone's possession. Whose bag is this? Whose marker is this? We use this w h o s e word to do that. Who's with an apostrophe s means who is? Like, who's he talking to? Right? That's not a question of possession. So, these words sound exactly the same when we are speaking, right? But, it's important to remember that they are very different on paper. So, keep these small differences in mind because they do matter. Okay, great. So, this is a quick introduction
to how to use apostrophes. This is a very basic introduction to this very important punctuation mark, but these rules will help you in the majority of situations. So, keep these in mind. Of course, if you have any questions or comments or if you want to practice making some apostrophe words, feel free to do so in the comment section of this video. Also, if you like this lesson, don't forget to give it a thumbs up and subscribe to this channel if you haven't already. Also, check us out at englishclass101.com for some other things that can help you with your English studies. Thanks very much for watching this video and I will see you again next time. Bye.
