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  • Hello, I'm Jade. What we're talking about today is how to use apostrophes. So, I know

  • there's going to be a few native speakers watching this video. It really is time to

  • learn how to use apostrophes correctly. It's not that hard. There are a few simple rules

  • and we're going to talk about them today. We'll start with the easy stuff, and eventually

  • we'll get to the more advanced rules, but you'll probably never need to use the more

  • advanced rules. But anyway, we'll get there in the second part of the lesson.

  • So what I want to start with is mentioning my school name. "Haberdashers Askes Hatcham

  • College". This is where I learnt how to use apostrophes. But at first, I cheated because

  • I've got a really... Had a really long school name and I always remember needing to write

  • this on exam papers. But I think when I... When I started the school, I probably didn't

  • know how to use apostrophes so I memorized where the apostrophes went. I didn't understand

  • why they went there, but I memorized them.

  • So the apostrophes were like this: "Haberdashers'" and "Aske's". I'm going to explain why.

  • So what's "Haberdashers'"? A "haberdasher" is an old-fashioned word for somebody who

  • makes garments, makes clothes, and all together, they were... They were together in what's

  • called a trade guild. And this is quite an old-fashioned thing now; maybe doesn't really

  • exist so much, but they had some charitable objectives. And so they were a group of these

  • haberdasher people and one of them was a man called "Robert Aske," so this is somebody's

  • name; person. And "Hatcham" is a place in London, and "College" is quite a poshy name

  • for a school. So you put all those words together and that's my school.

  • But let's talk about: why these apostrophes? So, the apostrophe is outside the "s" here

  • because we're talking about more than one haberdasher, that's the rule; more than one

  • thing, and possession - the apostrophe goes on the outside. Why the apostrophe here? When

  • the possession belongs... One thing belongs to one person, we put the apostrophe before

  • the "s". So the school belongs to Aske, Mr. Aske so that's why the apostrophe is there.

  • Maybe that's confusing. Let's break it down and look at the rules one-by-one using apostrophes.

  • So, number one: possession. Another meaning of possession is when... When you lose your

  • mind, you're taken over by something. But the more... The meaning I'm talking about

  • here is when something belongs to you; when you own something.

  • So here's a man, here's his car. "The man's car is there."

  • This sentence means: the car belonging to the man. And to show possession, I put the

  • apostrophe before the "s". I'm talking about just one man, so the apostrophe goes before

  • the "s". And same really in these other examples: "That's George's car."

  • Why..? Why one here? Well, here, we're not talking about apostrophes and possessions,

  • this is something else. That means: "That is". That means something else. This is an

  • apostrophe with possession. His name is George, it's a car belonging to George. "That's George's

  • car." And to show something belongs to someone, when we've got a name, we put the apostrophe

  • after their name and then we put the "s" there.

  • And we don't... We can also do it with places. So we've got:

  • "London's best fish and chips." The best fish and chips belonging to London,

  • and again, we do apostrophe, "s".

  • So when we're talking about possession, that's quite clear. It's okay, yeah? But now we have

  • an exception, and sometimes there's a lot of confusion about this and sometimes people

  • get quite annoyed. But what I am going to say is that there are two... There are two

  • ways to show possession when the name ends with an "s". So it's preference really; some

  • people prefer this way, some people prefer this way. All you need to do is just pick

  • one and be standard, always... If you pick one, just use that way all the time. Don't...

  • Definitely don't do it one way in an essay and then get a bit scared and do it a different

  • way because you'll be wrong then. You need to pick... You definitely need to pick a way.

  • So, "Chris" is a name ending in "s". So we can... I don't like saying this, but we can

  • say the girlfriend belonging to Chris by putting the apostrophe on the outside of the "s".

  • "She's Chris' girlfriend." So it's... Although, in grammar, it means the same as

  • these examples, here we're not putting the extra "s".

  • So that brings us to the second example. Here's a... Here's a common Welsh name: "Jones",

  • it ends in "s". So, you might choose to show possession when the name ends in "s" by putting

  • apostrophe "s" on your name, you can do that as well. So there are two options here.

  • "He is Mr. Jones's business partner." The business partner belonging to Mr. Jones.

  • When we come back, we've got more rules for using apostrophes and to show possession.

  • Are you ready for the advanced rules of apostrophes? Are you sure you're ready? You can do it.

  • Okay, for collective nouns... What's a "collective noun"? A collective noun is one that we don't

  • put "s" with, they're... They have their own words already. So we don't say "womens" with

  • an "s" because "women" means more than one, that's what a collective noun is. "Men" means

  • more than one man, and "children" means more than one child. So they're a little bit different

  • to just a regular noun where you can just put "s" on the end.

  • So when we have a collective noun, we have a different apostrophe rule. So what we do

  • is we put the collective noun down, and then we do apostrophe "s". It's not that hard.

  • "The women's group meet weekly." This means the group belonging to the women,

  • more than one woman.

  • Next sentence: "The men's toilets are disgusting."

  • You bet they are, not that I go in them. More than one man and toilets belonging to more

  • than one man. We put "men" and then apostrophe "s", as I said before.

  • And last example: "The children's department is upstairs."

  • The place where you can go and buy children's things, delightful children's clothing and

  • toys and stuff. The department belonging to the children is upstairs so we put the collective

  • noun and then apostrophe "s" to show that possession.

  • Let's compare the collective nouns apostrophe rules to just normal nouns where we put an

  • "s" to show more than one. So we have one boy and "boys" means more than one boy; it

  • could be two boys, it could be, you know... It could be 100 boys. So how do we show possession

  • for more than one boy? "The boys' school is excellent."

  • No full stop. This means the school belonging to more than one boy. There would be more

  • than three boys in the boys' school. Or maybe it... It could have two meanings, it could

  • be the general school belonging to the boys or maybe if you were talking about two of

  • your children and you had two boys, you could say it like this: "The boys' school is excellent."

  • Our next example: ladies. We have one lady and the plural of "lady" is "ladies". And

  • these are some ladies doing yoga. "The ladies' yoga class has started."

  • Again, because we already have an "s", we just put the apostrophe on the outside of

  • the "s". And that's that really.

  • Now, we're getting to the apostrophe rules you might not use, but let's have a look at

  • them. "Tom and Pete's friend Shaun."

  • What does that mean? Well, there's... There's one... There's one Shaun and he's equally

  • a friend of Tom and Pete. But we don't... We don't put apostrophe "s" there, we just

  • do it once. We just put it on the second name when we want to show that the possession is

  • equal to both of the... Both of the subjects. So one Shaun, equally a friend of Tom, equally

  • a friend of Pete - and that's how we show it with apostrophes.

  • What's about this one then? "Lulu's and Angela's boyfriends."

  • What does that mean? Well, this is a kind of example where you need to get it right

  • because it has quite different meanings. This sentence means that Lulu has a boyfriend.

  • This is Lulu's boyfriend, he's saying: "Where's Lulu?" And this is Angela's boyfriend. They're

  • two separate guys, two separate girls. So if I do that... If I... If I take the apostrophe

  • "s" away there, then they share one boyfriend. I mean some people do that, but you want to

  • make sure you've got your grammar right there because you might be confused. So if possession

  • is two separate things in your list, you have to do apostrophe "s" for each subject.

  • Let's look now at... What are these called? Compound nouns. Compound nouns, when there's

  • more than one word that go together to make a noun. So we have the example: "mother in

  • law". And "mother in law" is singular here, so how do we show possession? There are three

  • words, where does the apostrophe go? "His mother in law's party."

  • One mother in law, one party. And so we put the apostrophe "s" there and that shows us

  • that we're just talking about one mother in law. It's just one woman having a party, his

  • mother in law's party.

  • Whereas if you have a plural compound noun, first what you need to do is write your compound

  • noun down which would... Which in a singular would be: "brother in law" and to make it

  • a plural, you put the plural on the first word there. So here we have "brothers in law".

  • If I wanted to make "mother in law" plural, I would say: "mothers in law." No... No...

  • No "s" here, don't need an "s" there. Just one "s" after the first word. Then we need

  • to put in our apostrophe. Where do we put it?

  • "The brothers in law's company." So we put the "s" there before, that doesn't

  • mean we put the apostrophe there. We put the apostrophe on the last word; the same as the

  • example for the singular. "The brothers in law's company." There are... There are two

  • brothers in law, they've got different wives, and they have a company together. That's what

  • that sentence means.

  • Now there's just one important thing that you need to know - especially you native speakers

  • out there. Important! These pronouns don't take apostrophes:

  • "hers", "theirs", "yours", "whose", "ours". They don't take apostrophes at the end of

  • the word, they don't take apostrophes like that before the "s", they just don't. So you

  • need to be... You need to watch out for that. You could... You could make a terrible apostrophe

  • mistake and you don't want to do that.

  • So yeah, we're done with apostrophes now. But especially with apostrophes, it's good

  • to practice. You've listened, you've got a general idea, but it's really good to practice

  • this so I urge you to go and do the quiz for this one. Go to the engVid website. Do the

  • quiz, 10 questions. Try to get 10 out of 10. If you don't get 10 out of 10, come back and

  • watch this video again in a couple of days, try again.

  • And if you like my video and my teaching, well, why not subscribe? You can subscribe

  • on my engVid channel and on my second channel; I've got two channels. And yeah, that would

  • be great. So until next time, yeah. See... See you later. Okay, bye.

Hello, I'm Jade. What we're talking about today is how to use apostrophes. So, I know

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英語でのアポストロフィーの使い方 (How to use apostrophes in English)

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    Bono Chen に公開 2021 年 01 月 14 日
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