Hi, my name is Rebecca and in today's lesson I'm going to explain to you the difference
between two very commonly confused words and they are "it's" and "its".
Of course they sound the same, the pronunciation is the same, but there is a difference in
usage and I'm going to explain to you what it is.
This is quite confusing because especially if you read a lot online, you might find that
a lot of English speakers also make this mistake.
So I'm going to explain it to you, it's really quite simple and then hopefully after that
you will be able to use these two words in the correct way.
Ok?
So let's get started.
The first one "it's" is "i-t-apostrophe-s".
Now that word "it's" is, in terms of grammar, it's a contraction.
A contraction means that it's a shortened version of two words, right?
"It is" or "it has", alright?
So if you use "it-apostrophe-s", it can only mean "it is" or "it has".
So if you need to use those two words in the sentence, then you need to use the apostrophe.
Let's look at some examples.
"It's a nice day", that's a contraction of "it is a nice day", right?
"It's snowing", again, a contraction of "it is snowing", so we use the apostrophe.
It's been a long time, let's say you meet a friend and you haven't seen each other for
a long time.
So you say "Hi, it's been a long time."
This is a contraction of what?
"It has been", right?
"It has been", so we're using "it-apostrophe-s".
The last one, "It's been raining all day", alright?
Again, "It has been raining", alright?
So whenever you want to say "it is" or "it has", then make sure you use the apostrophe,
alright?
So let's go now to the next one, "It's" without the apostrophe.
So the only situation in which you're going to use that is when it's a possessive pronoun.
Now what does that mean?
Well, it's just like when we say "my book", "your book", right?
It's a possessive pronoun to show that something belongs to me or something belongs to you.
In the same way, we use "it's" to describe something that belongs to something or to
an animal, right?
For example, "Every country has its own flag", right?
"It" is the country, right, the country has no gender, right, it's not a "he" or a "she".
So I know in some languages they refer to countries as female, so then people sometimes
say "Every country has her own flag", that's actually not correct in English, we don't
give countries a gender, alright?
So you should say "Every country has its own flag".
Now this "it's" means that the country, the flag belongs to the country which has no gender
and so it's a possessive use of the word, right?
So you use "it's" with no apostrophe because if we use the apostrophe then it would be
something like "Every country has its own flag" or "it has own flag" and that wouldn't
be right.
Ok, let's take another example of the correct use, "The dog buried its bow", also usually
unless that animal is our pet then we know if it's a "he" or a "she" but if we're
just talking about an animal and we can't see what gender it is or what sex it is, right,
then we just say "it" for animals, "The dog buried its bow", alright?
So this is a very common mistake, be careful especially if you're doing a TOEFL or a TOEI
or an IELTS exam, examiners look out for this and also be careful as I said when you read
online because many people do misuse it but hopefully you will not after this.
So what I'm going to do is we're going to take a little break to erase this, put something
else on the board for you and give you a little test to see whether you have understood "it"
or "its" and "it's", this version and the second version.
Ok, so let's see if you've understood those two words, "it's" and "it's", alright?
The one with the apostrophe, the one without the apostrophe.
So let's look at the first example, "Have you seen my umbrella?
It's disappeared."
Which one should you write here?
This one?
Or this one?
Ok.
"Have you seen my umbrella?
It's disappeared."
"It has disappeared."
Right?
Ok, let's take number two.
Number two says "It's time to go to bed."
"It's time to go to bed."
Which one do you use?
This one?
Or this one?
Right?
Ok, also this time we're using the one with the apostrophe and it means "It's time to
go to bed."
"It is time to go to bed."
Alright?
Let's try number three.
"The snake sheds its skin."
Which one do we use this time?
This time we don't put an apostrophe because we're talking about the skin of the snake.
The skin that belongs to the snake so we just say "It's" and we're using it in the possessive
form.
Ok?
Last one.
"It's been a pleasure."
Sometimes we say this, for example, at the end of an evening.
You might have gone to a friend's house for dinner, might be a little bit of a formal
relationship, and at the end of the evening as you leave you might say to them "It's been
a pleasure."
Right?
It means that you've really enjoyed the evening.
It's a very nice thing to say, but if you were writing it, how would you write it?
That's the question.
Ok?
So again, we would use the apostrophe here because what we're really saying when we say
"It's been a pleasure," we're saying "It has been a pleasure."
Right?
Ok.
So as you can see, it's a little bit more confusing when you actually try it out, which
is why you should practice a lot, especially with this one.
Ok?
We have a quiz for you.
If you go to our website, www.engvid.com, you'll see a quiz on this.
As well as on many other topics in English.
Alright?
So, thanks for watching.
Good luck with your English.
Bye for now.