🏁 When you want to show something belongs to someone, we usually add an apostrophe and an s, e.g. John’s scooter.
Here are some more examples:
It was Carol’s car.
Billie’s song topped the charts.
The German Shepherd’s puppies were playing together in the garden.
📲 💻You can use this link to a Google Form so you can test you’ve got it.
🔆 Sorted? Go to Skill 17.
🛠 Need more advice? Read on.
We often need to be able to say who owns something. In English, we do this with an apostrophe and an extra s at the end of the word. The problem comes when people get confused and either leave out the apostrophe but still put an extra s, or put the apostrophe at the end of the word instead. Let’s take things one step at a time, just to be sure.
Firstly, think about what belongs to someone, then who it belongs to e.g.
John wanted a scooter. He bought one. The scooter is now John’s scooter.
Carol wanted a car. She bought a BMW. It is now Carol’s BMW.
Zoe has her own house. It is Zoe’s house.
But we can also say things about anything that belongs to anything else, and as long as we remember the apostrophe and the s we’ll know what belongs to what:
The window’s glass was cracked.
The house’s curtains were still closed.
The Playstation’s controller was broken.
We can do the same thing for countries too:
America’s border with Mexico is very long.
Britain’s airports are very busy.
🎯 📝 Can you see where to put the apostrophes in these examples?
Carols dog was very old.
Charlies car was silver.
Londons buildings can very tall.
The houses garden was full of trees.
The bedrooms floor was untidy again.
Caitlyns Ferraris clutch had failed again.
Johns dogs collars buckle had broken.
✅ You should have worked out these places for the apostrophe:
Carol’s dog was very old.
Charlie’s car was silver.
London’s buildings can very tall.
The house’s garden was full of trees.
The bedroom’s floor was untidy again.
Caitlyn’s Ferrari’s clutch had failed again. (You needed more than one apostrophe for this one)
John’s dog’s collar’s buckle had broken. (You needed three for this one)
🚦Time for more?
Because these apostrophes show belonging, we call them possessive apostrophes.