is it the TV remote or the TV's remote is it the book cover or the books cover and if you think that's easy what about the world end or the world's end well in that last example neither are correct hey you're not alone many students have this problem so in today's lesson you're going to see how easy possessives really are in English so you can confidently use them when you're speaking English are you ready I often hear my students saying things like the dog of the sister of my mother eight words instead of my ant's dog three words why well cuz they haven't learned possessives so before I can explain the TV remote or the TV's remote let's first have a look at the basic way to use possessives in English okay let's start with a quick review of singular nouns when a single person animal or thing owns something in these situations we just add an apostrophe and S to the end of the noun for example the King's Guard a child's imagination that authors books Greg's daily quick fakes that's my course that I run by WhatsApp for students who want to reach an advanced level of English now that's okay pretty easy but what happens if the noun already ends with an s like James boss Paris well in these cases we still need to add an apostrophe to show possession but we have a choice whether to add an S at the end or just leave it so we could say James's pen with just apostrophe or James's pen with an apostrophe s my boss's chair with an apostrophe or my boss's chair with apostrophe s paris's Cathedrals or paris's Cathedrals again either with the apostrophe or with the apostrophe s did you notice anything about my pronunciation it didn't change it's both James's or James's whether we use an apostrophe or an apostrophe s the important thing is that the apostrophe always comes after the final s of the noun okay before I continue as with all my videos you can download a free pdf worksheet with all the examples summary of today's lesson and an advanced quiz to test your understanding of this lesson just click the link in the description enter your email address and I will send that worksheet to your inbox immediately okay let's continue okay plural nouns by that I mean not one dog but two dogs dogs is the plural noun here now the rules change slightly here because if the plural noun ends with an s which it normally does we simply add an apostrophe at the end for example they are my dogs balls this sentence refers to two or more dogs and two or more bowls both tennis players rackets were damaged again this refers to two tennis players my parents house is in England two parents and over there is the students classroom again more than one student so in the plural possessive sentences we don't use an extra s and we don't pronounce an extra s either we simply write a little apostrophe when we are writing the word okay so what about the plurals that don't end in s like men women people children sheep these are all plural words well in these cases it's the same as with the singular noun we simply add an apostrophe and an S for example the men's toilets the Women's World Cup The People's Choice the children's toys the sheep's wool easy now it is going to get a little bit more complicated and I'm going to give you a test at the end of this video so you'll have a chance to practice all these different forms if you keep watching Until the End okay so before we move on to the difference between TV remote and TV's remote there are a couple of more possessive forms we need to look at okay so first let's have a look at some examples of when there are two or more owners of one thing like Sarah and John's wedding in this case you see we only make the final noun possessive Sarah and John's wedding anniversary is next week the kids love visiting their Granny's possessive we just make grandads possessive the second noun Tim Joe and Ben's project was finished late again you'll see not the second noun but it's the last noun in a group of people that we make possessive now just be careful here because when each person owns something separately each noun does need to have the possessive this is what I mean Sarah's and Tom's holiday plans are different this year so here we're talking about Sarah's holiday plans and Tom's holiday plans which are different and separate they're not going on holiday together okay Lisa's and Mark's bikes are locked up outside okay two bikes belonging to two separate people so we use the possessive for both of those people Alex's and Maria's apartments are in different parts of the city you get the idea okay before we move on to the tricky part let's have a look at proper nouns that have two or more words sell is complicated but it's very easy my sister-in-law for example it's one person but it has three words my sister-in-law my sister-in-law's advice was very helpful okay so we just put the apostrophe S at the end of the last word it's not sisters-in-law but it's sister-in-laws the vice president's office is on the top floor again vice president two words one person but we put the apostrophe S at the end of President not at the end of vice and guess what we do with best friend no surprises My Best Friend's Wedding was a memorable event okay exactly the same thing easy okay before we continue I want to teach you one of the most common mistakes in English and I mean that native English speakers make okay so if you want to have a better level of English at least in this aspect then keep listening carefully I'm talking about the difference between it and its which are both pronounced exactly the same look at this sentence it's clear that the company Apple is proud of its reput utation it's clear so what's going on here well the first it with the apostrophe s is not a possessive form what we've done here is we've used the contraction of it is that little apostrophy just means something is missing here okay the letter i is missing it on the other hand it without the apostrophe is the possessive form so its reputation means the reputation that belongs to Apple why is this well it's it's like my your her his our their none of those words have an apostrophe and its doesn't have an apostrophy either here are a couple of more examples it's remarkable how this bird can spread its wings so wide it is remarkable its wings when a dog wags its tail that usually means that it's happy it's Tale the possessive form it's happy with the apostrophe okay possessive pronouns things like mine yours okay so like the possessive adjectives that we looked at a minute ago possessive pronouns also don't have an apostrophe let's have a look a few examples of this that book is hers hers does not have an apostrophe that cat on the wall is M mine no apostrophe I wish I had a garden like yours no apostrophe with yours our team has a plan but we're curious about theirs theirs doesn't have an apostrophe okay but each of these sentences shows that someone owns something but none of them need an apostrophe now listen carefully cuz it's going to get interesting okay so up until now we've mostly looked at possessives of people Lisa Mark women the tennis players okay not things like TV or a table so let's now look at some other types of nouns that can have a possessive form so this will help us identify nouns that cannot be possessive okay so first of all we have Collective groups and in institutions like a team the government a company a university these are all teams or institutions or groups of people he had to wash the team's uniform I don't agree with the government's policy McDonald's menu is changing all the time Harvard's admission test is difficult then there are countries and cities and landmarks like China's economy is huge I visited all of London's museums Mount Everest Peak is the highest in the world we were fascinated by the coliseum's architecture and then we have times and measurements such as I've got a full days work tomorrow the station is a miles walkway he was paid one years's salary we also have celestial bodies in other words things in the sky and out in space they can also be possessive for example the sun's rays are powerful the moon's surface has many rers Earth's atmosphere is 21% oxygen if I remember correctly so can any noun be used in the possessive so can any type of noun be used in the possessive no it can't and this is where we need to be careful now there are many different types of noun where we can't use the possessive and here are some examples the first type of noun is inanimate objects like what the heck is an an inanimate object right well basically it's something that you can see and touch but it doesn't move it doesn't think it it's not alive I'm talking about things like a table a rock a hotel a computer with Nows like these we usually use of to indicate possession like the shape of the rock or we could just use the noun without the apostrophe s for example the legs of the table aren't straight that's fine but we can also say the table legs aren't straight both forms are correct here the windows of the hotel are beautiful that's fine or the hotel windows are beautiful that's fine too the screen of the computer is off or the computer screen is off again both are perfectly fine and perfectly correct the cover of the book was interesting the book cover was interesting blah blah blah you get the idea now with inanimate objects native speakers generally prefer to use the shorter version as we always do so things like table legs Hotel Windows computer screen that is much more common because it's faster and easier to say now sometimes using of with the possessive will sound very very strange and unnatural so shut the door of the car we would never say that shut the car door that's incorrect because it's an inanimate object so we have to say shut the car door now unfortunately there is no definitive rule that is true 100% of the time for nouns like this so you just have to try to follow the guidelines listen to native speakers listen to what you hear and what you read and copy that now some other nouns that don't use the possessive are abstract nouns H an abstract noun is something that you can't touch things like love happiness peace knowledge these are all nouns but we can't physically touch them they're abstract and with abstract nouns using of usually sounds more normal like The Power of Love good s have you seen the movie The Pursuit of Happiness the role of peace is important he possessed a great depth of knowledge now as I mentioned there is no 100% rule that works all the time so there are many exceptions to this like the word ship or boat okay these are inanimate objects we can touch them but I don't think they're not alive but they are often used with the possessive because sometimes we personify things in other words we we give them names we give them characters we give them personalities and we do this with boats and ships like boaty mcboat face but anyway saying things like the ship's crew are tired or look at that boat's sail sounds perfectly natural because we have personified the boat so yes basically I'm telling you the rules but as with many things in English grammar these rules can be broken so that brings us back to the original question and the title of this video do we say the TV's remote or the TV remote or the remote of the TV well hopefully after watching this video you now know that the most natural way is the TV remote the TV is an inanimate object and why would we say pass me the remote of the TV seven words when we can just say pass me the TV remote five words and in fact when we're in the situation of asking for the TV remote it's pretty obvious that if we're watching TV the remote that we want is the TV remote you're not going to be asking for the remote for the microwave so in in this situation you'd probably say just pass me the remote right try this short quiz to test your knowledge to see how much you've learned in this lesson and remember there are many more questions to practice with in my free pdf worksheet which I've made for you which you can download by clicking the link in the description it's free just enter your email address and I will send it straight to you okay let's do the quiz number one identify the error in the following sentence the girl's dress is blue a no error that's fine B it should be girls with apostrophe S at the end or it should be girls with simply an apostrophe at the end [Music] number two which of the following sentences is correct a my sister's in-law's car is new B my sister-in-law car is new C my sister-in-law's car is new [Music] number three which sentence is correct a Sarah and John's houses are all large B Sarah's and John's house is large or C Sarah and John's house is large [Music] number four which sentence is correct a that plant needs its leaves trimmed yes it's grown quite tall B that plant needs its leaves trimmed yes it's grown quite tall or see that plant needs its leaves trimmed yes it's grown quite [Music] tall and question number five which sentence is correct a that desk's corner is sharp B the corner of the desk is sharp or C both are correct [Music] let me know in the comments how many you got right there's the worksheet for today's lesson make sure you download that for a full summary and more questions and if you want more advanced grammar lessons from me then click there next all right I'm going to watch TV now can you pass with the TV remote bye for [Music] heal