What is the best way to explain how to choose between "its" and "it's"?

Question

Probably one of the most frequent grammar mistakes in the English language is: > The dog sat on it's mat. Since spelling checkers don't catch it, and it is even logical, since you would correctly write: > The dog sat on Fluffy's mat. What is the best way to explain to a learner of English how to choose between *it's* and *its*?

Answer 1

The two words, "it's" and its", can be easily be confused in the English language but there is an easy way to distinguish the correct use of each. "It's" is the abbreviation of "it is" and "its" means "belonging to it".

There is an easy trick to determine if "it's" is used correctly in a sentence. You can substitute "it's" to "it is" and see if it still make's sense. For an example:

"It's":

"It's a nice day outside."

"It is":

"It is a nice day outside."

For the word "its", it means the belonging of it as I said above. An example of "its" in a sentence is: "That is Eric's cat but I don't know its name". In this example, "its" is used correctly because the name used in this sentence belongs to Eric's cat.