蜜芽传媒

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Learning English - The Flatmates

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Language Point

Quiz

Talk

Possessions

Alice, Helen, Tim and Khalid in the living room

There are lots of different ways of talking about possessions or things that belong to you. For example, Alice said 'Tim this one's for you' and Tim said 'Helen here's yours'.

We can show that something belongs or is owned by some by using an apostrophe (') plus the letter s:

A child's plastic pony.

It's Bill's house.

It's the boy's dog. = one boy and one dog

They're the boys' dogs. = more than one boy and more than one dog

We can use these pronouns to show possession:

Is that Bill's coat?
No, it's mine. = It's my coat.

Is this pen mine or yours? = my pen or your pen
Neither, it's hers. = her pen

Whose?
It's Molly's pen.

We can also use these pronouns in this way:

He's a friend of mine. = my friend

She's a colleague of his. = his colleague

That was a great book of yours you lent me. = your book

Note: We don't use apostrophes with these pronouns:

It's her's	It's hers
They're your's	They're yours
It's their's	It's theirs

We can use my / your / his / her before own to show that something belongs only to me/you/ her etc and not shared with anyone else:

This is all my own work. No-one helped me with it.

After sharing a flat for years, she was glad to buy her own house.

We shared our first car with my parents-in-law but we've got our own car now.

We can also use this structure to talk about things we do by ourselves rather than having someone else do them for you.

He can't afford to go to the hairdressers so he just cuts his own hair.

She's got a sewing machine and makes her own clothes.

separate
different

material
cloth, for example, cotton, nylon or denim,

an apron
something you wear to protect your clothes while you are cooking