James Baquet

    Lily sees her classmate Becky writing in a magazine in the common room of their dorm.

    Lily: Hi, Becks. What’s that?

    Becky: Oh, I was just taking one of those silly grammar quizzes in a magazine.

    Lily: Oh, I hate those things! I can never pass.

    Becky: Actually, it’s pretty easy — if you know a few tricks.

    Lily: Really? I don’t know about that. I’m pretty terrible at grammar.

    Becky: Look, a lot of the confusion rises from words that sound alike, like these two: “You’re a nice girl” and “Is this your bag?”

    Lily: Or, “I have two dollars. That’s not too many. Can you give some to me?”

    Becky: Exactly!

    Lily: I get it. But I can never remember which is which.

    Becky: Well, with words like “you’re” and “your,” remember what they mean: you’re is “you are.”

    Lily: Got it. But don’t we use apostrophes for possession, too? Like, “Tim’s favorite food is eggplant?”

    Becky: That’s right. But only for nouns, not possessive pronouns.

    Lily: Huh?

    Becky: Sorry. Words like my/mine, your/yours, his/his, her/hers, our/ours and their/theirs are pronouns — words that take the place of nouns — that show someone owns or possesses something.

    Lily: Okay, got it.

    Becky: So yours, his, hers, ours, and theirs don’t take apostrophes. But nouns — like “my mom’s cat,” do.

    Lily: So when I take a grammar quiz and there’s a choice of words that sound alike, I should think of what they do. And here, the words you just said show who owns something.

    Becky: That’s right. But words like “they’re going home” or “you’re my best friend” are saying “they are” and “you are,” so they need an apostrophe somewhere.

    Lily: How about to, too and two?

    Becky: Ha! Okay, you know the preposition, “I’m going to a party.”

    Lily: Sure, that’s the easy one.

    Becky: And you can also recognize the number two?

    Lily: Sure.

    Becky: So that leaves “too.” This is used when something is more than you want — “I’m too tired” — or kind of like “also.”

    Lily: Like “me, too.”

    Becky: That’s right. We also use it sometimes to mean “very,” like “She wasn’t too happy to see me.”

    Lily: Got it. So, a preposition, a number, and that last one.

    Becky: Exactly. Now, another trick: Be careful of verb tenses.

    Lily: Like “see, saw, seen?”

    Becky: That’s right. Sometimes in grammar quizzes they’ll give you wrong choices, like, “I seen a movie yesterday.”

    Lily: Or, “I see my family every day when I am a child.”

    Becky: You’ve got it!

    Lily: Listen, I have to go. Can we continue later?

    Becky: Sure.

    Lily: Thanks, Becky!

    Becky: My pleasure!