Yours vs Your's

Yours

is possessive form for You. It replaces "your" + noun.

He found a coat - is it yours?

Yours sincerely

Your's

It would be interpreted as "your is" which makes no sense. It's always incorrect to use Your's. It should never have an (apostrophe) 's. Use Yours.

You're vs Your

(notice the mistake?)

You're (short form) = you are

Your're is often followed by the present participle.

You're going to be late.

You're much better at table tennis than Mark is.

Your is a possessive form of You.

Refers to something that a person has, or something that belongs to that person. Your is almost always followed by a noun. Your will usually nor be followed by an adjective when that adjective is describing the person that your talking to. For example, Your very kind will only be correct if you are describing a noun. This sentence is correct because nice is describing someone's, for example, daughter.

What is your name?

Is this your car?

Your book is on the table.

Homophones: They're, their and there

These three homophones are often used incorrectly even by native speakers.

They’re (short form) = they are

My children have gone on holiday and they’re in Germany today.

Their (possessive word)

The cats always leave their hair all over the place.

There has two uses:

1. (adverb of place) = in that place. Think of it as an answer to the question “where?”.

The post office is over (where?) there.

2. with the verb "to be" (with phrases such as "there is", "there are" etc)

There are 26 apples in the basket.

Practice:

http://www.better-english.com/easier/theyre.htm

http://a4esl.org/q/h/mc-ttt.html

Missing Auxiliaries - Common Errors in English

Not every language uses auxiliary verbs like English. Languages that don't use auxiliary verbs, replace them with suffixes added onto the ends of verbs. Missing auxiliaries are a common mistake for non-native English speakers, since many languages either omit auxiliary verbs, or have different usage characteristics.

An auxiliary verb is “a highly irregular verb that is used with other verbs to form voice, tense, and mood.” These verbs are also know as “helper verbs”, because of their role in adding meaning to the main verb of a sentence.

Complete list of English auxiliary verbs:

am, is, are, shall, should, be, being, been, was, were, will, would, has, have, had, do, does, did, can, could, may, might, must, ought

Auxiliary verbs have a few grammatical functions:

• Support: Auxiliaries help/change the meaning of a main verb
  i.e. The doctor went home. The doctor is going home.
• Interrogative: Auxiliaries invert to form questions
  i.e. You can go. Can you go?
• Negation: To negate a sentence, not or n’t is added after an auxiliary
  i.e. Charles goes to class. Charles does not go to class.

Depending on the context, some auxiliaries can function alone as the only verb in a sentence; others will not be found without a main verb.

These are known as modal verbs (can, could, may, might, ought, shall, should, will, would, and must).

Modal verbs NEVER appear alone; they always accompany a main verb.

a word a day

bobby (BOB-ee)
noun British: A policeman.

After Sir Robert Peel, who was Great Britain’s Home Secretary when the 1828 Metropolitan Police Act was passed.

“The fish and chip shop may be as ‘Truly British’ as the bobbies patrolling in their pointed black helmets, but the tidy streets, royalist sentiments and low crime rate hark back to an era that faded away decades ago in Britain.”
—New York Times

a word a day

monstrous (mon-ES-truhs)

adjective Of or related to mammals that experience one estrus (rut or period of heat) in a breeding season.

Combining form mon- (one) from Greek monos, mono- + oistros

(gadfly, madness).

“The ova vaccine, Miller says, is a better choice for monstrous species, like coyotes, that come into heat only once a year, regardless of whether the female conceives.”

—Discover

A word a day

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Agelast (AJ-uh-last)
noun Someone who never laughs.

From Greek agelastos (not laughing), ultimately from gelaein (to
laugh).

“Anyway, [Sandi Toksvig] has to go off now. To do an hour of stand-up which the audience absolutely loves. I don’t spot a single agelast.”
—Independent (London)

A word a day

I am going to do a series of A WORD A DAY that focuses on Words to Describe People.

the first word is:

opsimath (OP-si-math)

noun One who begins learning late in life.

From Greek opsi- (late) + math (learning).

“Maybe they just cannot bring themselves to break the news to our presidential opsimath—after all, a politician can learn only so much in four years, even one who has had as much to learn

as our Jimmy Carter.”

—Washington Post