Common English Mistakes: "There," "Their," and "They're"

"There," "Their," and "They're" are three of the most commonly mixed up words in written English. The problem is that they're homonyms (words that sound the same), so we don't have to worry about them when we're speaking. Because we don't have to keep track of them when we're talking, we often forget the difference and use the incorrect word in our writing. This can lead to readers of your work focusing more on your mistakes than what you mean to say.

Let's go through the different words and figure out what each one means.

Their

The word "their" is a possessive adjective. Possessive adjectives are words like "my" and "your" that describe ownership of nouns (people, places, or things). "Their" is the plural form of "his" and "her."

Let's look at an example:

Her jacket is pink.

The possessive used here is "her," showing that the pink jacket belongs to an unknown female. Here's an example with "their":

My three sisters always fight over what to watch on their television.

In this sentence, "their" is used instead of "her" because we're talking about more than one girl or woman. If it was just one, we'd use "her," but the television belongs to three girls, not one.

The same rule applies to "his." If there is more than one person who owns the object in question, use "their" instead of "his."

Note that, just like "his" and "her," "their" always comes before a noun.

They're

"They're" is a contraction, which means that a pronoun (I, you, we, he, she, they) is being combined with a verb (an action, something you can do). "They're" is simply a shorter way to write the phrase "they are."

Examples:

They're crazy! (They are crazy!)

Do you know where they're going? (...they are going?)

I can't believe they're betting their whole savings on a horse. (...they are betting...)

There

"There" is definitely the most complicated word out of these three. "Their" and "they're" are strictly limited and specific in their usage; however, "there" is much more versatile and can function as several different types of speech, including as an adjective, an adverb, a noun, and a pronoun.

For this word, I personally find it more helpful to think about what it means than think about how it is functioning grammatically. "There" is almost always used to indicate a place, either literal or metaphorical.

Examples:

Park the car over there. (We don't know exactly where "there" is without more context, but we know the speaker is indicating a place, perhaps by pointing)

There is where I kissed her. (Again, referring to a specific place)

Walk to the restaurant on the corner; when you get there, go inside and wait in the lobby. (Here "there" is used to refer to the restaurant without having to say "the restaurant" twice in one sentence)

Besides representing places, "there" is sometimes used just as a introductory word of sorts (like There are angels in heaven) or as an exclamation (like There, I'm done).

Which one should I use?

Although "there" can be an abstract word, it's not hard to identify the word you're looking for. Ask yourself two simple questions:

First, could I use "they are" in the same place? If "they are" works, use "they're."

If not, am I looking for a word that comes before a noun and indicates group ownership? If the answer to this is yes, you're looking for the word "their."

If you answered no to both of these questions, you need the word "there."

For more help on eliminating written mistakes, please see my article "Common English Mistakes: Its Versus It's."