TRANSCRIPT OF THE ABOVE VIDEO: 'English Grammar Lesson: It's and Its - How To Correctly Use & Understand Essential English Grammar'

Hi, it's Nicole. And I'm here today to answer another one of your questions.

Look, this particular question is something that everyone asks, and something that everyone has difficulties in, and something that most people make mistakes with. So, you know, I want to help you with this and make it as clear as possible.

Before I answer this question, I want you to know that even native speakers make this mistake. Okay? So, don't stress out. Don't think I will never understand this, I will never know this because native speakers make this mistake all the time. Okay, so if they can do it you can do it too, but we don't want you to do it. We want to make it nice and clear and for you to understand how to eliminate that mistake, get rid of that mistake and use it correctly.

So, the question is ‘what's the difference between it's and it's?’ They both sound the same. One is ITS and the other one is IT’S

Let's start with the first its which is ITS, and this is a possessive. It is used to show ownership of something. It's exactly the same and it's used exactly the same as his or her, or my or your, or even their, their. So, it's a possessive, it's used to show ownership, and it's always used before a noun.

So, for example, its dinner, or its blanket, for the dog, or its birthday, again for the dog. Why not! You can also use it with an adjective noun combination, so it would be its + adjective + noun, so its wonderful result, or its fantastic news, something like that. So, in that situation, it's a possessive, the news belongs to it, or the, what else did I say, the, its dinner, the dinner belongs to it.

Now we've got the contraction, the form of IT’S and that is always two words. Okay, it's never a possessive, don't think that just because it has an apostrophe there it means that it's a possessive or an ownership. Not at all. You're only going to use that possessive or that apostrophe s with your name. So, Nicole's book. Okay, Nicole’s book, but if I say its book, ‘it apostrophe s’ the book does not belong to it.

Okay, just because it has an apostrophe there before the S does not make it ownership. You need to have the noun or the proper noun there with the apostrophe s to make it ownership. The ownership is always the its without the apostrophe. I hope that makes it clear.

If you have the it apostrophe s IT'S, it's not ownership, it is a contraction. It is always the short version of two words. It plus is, for example, it's a beautiful day today. It is a beautiful day today. Okay, it's got nothing to do with ownership there. It is just the short version, the condensed version of it is.

So the most important thing to learn from this is just because it has an apostrophe does not make it ownership or possession. The it apostrophe s is always two words. It is. Nicole apostrophe s - Nicole’s - that is ownership, but if the dog’s, dog apostrophe s, that is ownership as well. But ITS, its without the apostrophe replaces the dog. Does that make sense? Oh, I hope I haven't made that even more difficult.

I'm more than happy to prepare a really long learning video on this and to give you a step-by-step written instructions and examples, but I just wanted to answer that question and make that nice and clear. Hope that helped. If you've got a question, please ask in the comments below. Have a lovely day. Bye!