The words “your” and “you’re” are homophones: they sound alike, but they have different meanings. Keep the different definitions in mind when you spell these words.
The word “your” is a possessive pronoun that means “belonging to you.”
The word “you’re” is a contraction of “you are.”
Watch your step when you’re walking through the kitchen. You’re not going to believe this, but your sister spilled an entire bottle of olive oil on the floor.
Replace “your” and “you’re” with their definitions to see how these words fit into the sentences.
Watch [the] step belonging to you when you are walking through the kitchen. You are not going to believe this, but [the] sister belonging to you spilled an entire bottle of olive oil on the floor.
Test the usage of “your” and “you’re” in the following sentences by replacing these words with their definitions.
- Your coming with us.
- Belonging to you coming with us.
This does not make sense. Replace “your” with the definition of “you’re” to see how it makes sense in the sentence.
- You are coming with us.
- You’re coming with us.
This makes sense. The use of “you’re” in this context is correct.
