Hi, my name is Rebecca and today. We'll be talking about some commonly confused words in English
We have several words like this which can be quite challenging
So these words are called hominids a homonym is a word which sounds the same as another word
But it may be spelled differently
Okay, alright, so let's start with the first set for today
These are the ones which I've written on the board the first one is there
The second one is there and the last one is there so as you can see
They're all pronounced the same but they are quite different the meaning is different the spelling is different
And when you're writing you really need to know the difference because if you make a mistake in one of these words
They're fairly basic words, and you don't want to lose points in an essay or on your eye also on your toefl exam in one
Of these quite basic words okay, so let's examine them in a little more detail the first one is
there this one is a contraction. A
contraction is when we combine two words so this contraction there is a
Combination of they plus r. We take out the a and we have the contraction there
So that's the first one, okay?
Let's think of some examples with they're the first one for example
they're british
They're sitting in the car
They're international students in
Each of these cases we were trying to say they are they are
International students, they are sitting in the car, and so on okay
All right, let's go to the second one the second one is their
t h e i r
Their is a possessive adjective it means it belongs to them
alright for example. That's their house
That's their car. okay. Have you seen their new house and so on
Alright, so that's being used as a possessive adjective to refer to something that belongs to them
Okay, let's go to the third one there
There can be two things
in one case it can be used as an introduction before the verb to be
There's
John
There's Michael
there's my book or there is my friend, okay?
There is a sale at the mall things like that
All right, it can also be used as an adverb to say in that place
Your books over there
Your cars parked over there
okay, so this is another way in which we can use the word there t h e r e
All right, so now
If you've got these three clear, I'm going to ask you a few questions
And you tell me which of these is the right one that you would use in this example, okay?
so if we say have you visited their house?
Have you visited their house? Which one is that?
this this this
Have you visited their house or saying their house meaning?
The possessive form the house that belongs to them so we are talking about the middle one which is the possessive adjective
Okay
Here's another one
They're good friends
Okay, let me give it to you again. They're good friends. Which one is that?
Right it's the first one. They're good friends is a contraction of the two words
They are correct, so it will be the first one all right
Let's take another one there are many ways to improve your English
There are many ways to improve your English
Which there are we using now, okay? Have a look
alright, it's the last one
There are many ways to improve your english, okay, all right
So take a minute to review that when I come back, we're going to do a little test with one sentence
Which I'd like you to write down
Maybe you can grab a piece of paper and a pen in the mean time and I'll be right back
Okay, did you grab a piece of paper alright? So here's the quiz to see if you have mastered these three words alright?
They're sitting over there in their car
Got that they're sitting over there in their car
Write that down while you're writing it down. I'm going to write it on the board for you
Okay, did you get all the folks first one?
They're sitting they are sitting over
there in that place
in
Their car in the car that belongs to them okay, so if you got that one, right?
you've probably understood this concept very well if you want to do some more review write out some more sentences
With the three examples and this way you can be sure that you won't make a mistake in something quite basic
If you have any questions about this lesson or anything else to do with English, please feel free to go to our website
www.engvid.com
Alright. See you there. Thanks very much. Bye