There? Their? Or they're?

Do you know these

words, have you heard them before? What are

these words called? They are so confusing.

Have they been the cause of your trouble?

These words are called homophones and today

we are going to understand everything about

them. Stay tuned with me Michelle and we are

going to find out about there, their and they

are.

Alright, so as I told you that these words

are called homophones. So what are homophones?

Homophones are words which have the same pronunciation

but different spelling and different meanings.

So we pronounce all of these as there but

they all have different spellings as you can

see and very different meanings. So I'm going

to share with you the meanings for all of

these words with certain examples.

Let’s look at the first example on the board.

It’s over there or it's over here. Where

is the marker? The marker is over here but

if I don't have it in my hands, then the marker

is over there. That means it's far away. So

there is an opposite of here, right now the

marker is over here and there is the opposite

of here. Where are your books? They are over

there which means they are not near to you.

However, if the books in your hand, they are

over here. So this word talks about distance

and how far something is from you but the

same word can also express a different meaning.

Remember we are talking about the same word.

It has the same spelling and the same pronunciation.

So let's find out, what does the word there

mean in the second sentence? There are many

countries in Europe. Is it true? Are there

many countries in Europe? Yes, there are.

So this means that many countries exist in

Europe. Here the word there is used to talk

about something that exists, for something

that exists. So there are many countries in

Europe or there are many children in a family.

They all exist in a family or there are many

members of a family.

Now let's move to the next word that we have,

their. Their house is big. Does it mean the

same as there? No, but we pronounce it the

same way but it has a different meaning. Their

house is big is talking about something that

belongs to someone. So who does this house

belong to? Possibly a family, John's family.

So John's house is big. Instead of saying

John’s house is big, you could say, their

house is big when you're talking about more

than one person. If you're talking only about

John, you could say, his house is big, which

is a possessive pronoun. The same way, their

is also a possessive pronoun where you're

talking about something that belongs to someone,

for belonging to someone. Think about the

sentence, the children put their books in

the bag. So who do the books belong to? The

books belong to children. So here we are talking

about belongingness. Did you notice something

when I said this sentence, the children put

their books in the bag. So what are books?

This is a noun, the word books is a noun and

how about the word, house, and this is also

a noun. So I'm sure, you're smart enough and

you must have guessed that the word their,

t-h-e-i-r is always used with a noun. It always

comes before a noun.

Alright, now let's look at the next sentence.

I think they're crazy. What does this mean?

It just has a completely different spelling

and we also have a strange thing here. I'm

sure you know that this is called an apostrophe

and this word is a contraction for they are.
So they are, is contracted as they're and
it is used to talk about a group of people.

Here we are talking about a group of people

who we think are crazy and what about the

word, crazy? So crazy is an adjective and

you can use this contraction with an adjective,

very often.

Let’s look at the next one. They are singing

loudly. So as you've seen that this is a contraction

for they are but now we do not have an adjective.

Instead what is singing? Singing is a verb

and not just a verb, it is a progressive verb

because the action is going on. An ING shows

that the action is continuing. So they are

singing loudly, this sentence shows us that

we can use this contraction, they're either

with an adjective or with a progressive verb

that is, a verb that is going on. For example,

they are playing. They are playing but remember

that you'll pronounce them all the same way.

You don't worry, you don't have to worry about

the pronunciation. It’s all there, their

and they're. So let's get a little tricky

and find out which of these words fills the

correct blank in this sentence? Pause the

video, take a minute and find out the correct

answer.

Alright, I hope you must have found the answers

for yourself but let's check your answers.

So this should be, they're playing their video

games over there. It’s all the same but

not really. So, do you have the same answers

or do you have any different answers? We have

the word, they're. this contraction because

as I shared with you, that this contraction

is usually used with a verb in the ING form

and their video games because the video games

belong to the boys or the girls over there

which means they're not here and the opposite
of here is there and the group of people playing
video games are there. They are not here.

Please click on the link at the end of the

video and do a test for yourself to find out

how much you've learnt. Thank you for staying with me, bye.