Its vs It’s: What’s the Difference?

If you checked out my post on your vs you’re, you’d know that there are actually many parts of English writing that are difficult for both English learners and native English speakers. Today, I’ll be teaching you about a similarly difficult topic: the difference between its vs it’s. It’s actually very east to learn! Let’s get started.

There Are Two Reasons Why It’s and Its Are Confusing

I told you that even native English speakers confuse these two words in their writing. I bet you’re asking why? There’s two reasons: they’re homophones and the word it’s looks like it should be possessive when it’s really not.

The first reason so many people struggle with these words is because they’re homophones. These are words that sound the same but have different meanings or spellings. Its and it’s have the exact same pronunciation whether you say them at a conversational speed or at a slow, careful one.

Since native English speakers grow up speaking the language for years before learning how to write it, we often don’t stop to think about the grammatical categories or writing rules for each word as we type or write them out unless we studied topics like English literature, English teaching, linguistics, etc.

The second reason that so many people have a hard time with these two words is that -‘s is how we show possession for nouns (people, places, things, ideas, etc.). For example, if a woman named Darcy has a car, we would call it Darcy’s car. We use the apostrophe punctuation mark (this one ‘ that looks a little like a comma) plus the letter -s to mark possession. So why isn’t it the same for it’s and its?

It’s – A Contraction of It and Is

In most languages, speakers like to shorten common words to make the language easier to pronounce, make longer words take less time, to sound more friendly and casual instead of formal, etc. English is the same. We have many contractions. A contraction is when you take two different words, shorten them, and join them together with an apostrophe (‘). An example of a contraction I’ve already used in this blog post is don’t (do + not -> don’t). The word it’s is a contraction, too.

It’s is a contraction of the words it and is. We make many contractions like this in English by taking a subject pronoun (I, you, etc.) and combining it with the form of the be-verb (am, are, is) that matches it. Take a look at the chart below for some other examples:

As you can see, it’s is on this contraction chart along with you’re, I’m, they’re, and more. You should only use it’s when you can also use it is. You never use it’s for possession even though it has the -‘s like in our Darcy’s car example. Keep in mind, contractions are informal and shouldn’t be used in formal writing situations like business emails or university essays.

Let’s take a look at some examples of grammatically correct sentences that use the it’s contraction:

• It’s a beautiful day today.
• It’s going to rain later.
• It’s 5 o’clock in the morning.
• Lizzo says, “it’s about damn time!”
• You know that new video game? I heard that it’s going on sale next month.

In all of the sentences above, we can easily swap out it’s with it is. For example, if Lizzo wanted to be a little more formal with her famous song, she would say “it is about damn time.” Never use it’s to show possession! Which brings us to the next part of this post…

Its – The Possessive Adjective

In English, we call our describing words adjectives. Adjectives are words like big, tall, short, fat, skinny, funny, amusing, interesting, boring, etc. We have a specific set of adjectives used to show that someone or something possesses or has something. These are called possessive adjectives; its is a possessive adjective.

I know what you’re thinking now. possessive adjective is a long, difficult term. Don’t worry, though. You already know what they are even if you don’t know their fancy name. Take a look at the chart below:

As you can see above, possessive adjectives are very common words in English like my, your, their, and, of course, its! We use its when we want to show that it possesses or has something.

If you’re still not sure what its does, let’s take a look at some grammatically correct examples to make its meaning clearer:

• The dog is wagging its tail.
• The movie was better than its preview made it seem.
• I love this painting. Its beauty is hard to describe.
• The bird loves to see its reflection in the mirror.
• The cat ate all its food.

As you can see from the above examples, the word its shows possession. We can prove this by taking the third example and changing its for “this painting’s“: “I love this painting. This painting’s beauty is hard to describe.” It sounds a little odd since we repeat painting, but you can still understand the meaning easily. Never use its when you mean it is!

When to use its vs it’s

Let’s review what we learned. You use it’s when you mean it is, because it’s is a contraction of it is; e.g. “It is/It’s going to be hot today.” You use its as a possessive adjective – when you want to show that something owns something; e.g., “The horse hurt its/the horse’s foot.” Its and it’s should be easy to understand now. If you want to test your knowledge, try out these problems below:

Directions: Use the correct word (its or it’s).

1. ___ going to be so cold tomorrow night. Wear a jacket.
2. The guinea pig turned ___ head to drink the water.
3. The laptop screen is too bright. ___ hurting my eyes.
4. I have a test on Tuesday. I want to know if ___ a hard one or easy one.
5. The monkey looks like ___ smiling. I can see ___ teeth.

If you want to find out if you got the answers correct for the problems above, leave a comment, and I’ll let you know if you got them correct! If you want to learn how to speak American English with better pronunciation, check out my guide to the IPA letter and English vowel sound /ʌ/. It’s the vowel sound in words like nut, but, and cut.