Possessive 's and s' (Showing Belonging)

Level: A1. The possessive apostrophe is how English shows that one thing belongs to another. It is only two small marks — an apostrophe and sometimes an -s — but where you put them depends on whether the owner word is singular or plural.

The rule

A noun is a word for a person, place or thing. When you want to show that a noun owns or is closely connected to something, you add a possessive ending to the owner, not to the thing owned.

The basic form is apostrophe + s (’s). Add it to any singular noun: the dog’s bone, Sara’s car, my brother’s phone. The owner comes first, then the thing.

For a plural noun that already ends in -s (most regular plurals), you add just an apostrophe after the -s: the students’ books, the girls’ team, my parents’ house. You don’t add a second s.

Some plurals are irregular — they don’t end in -s (children, men, women, people). These behave like singular nouns and take the full ’s: the children’s toys, the men’s room, the women’s final.

The forms

Example sentences

Common mistakes

• ❌ Banana’s for sale. → ✅ Bananas for sale. An apostrophe does not make a plural; bananas is just more than one banana.
• ❌ The childrens’ toys. → ✅ The children’s toys. Children is already plural and has no -s, so add ’s.
• ❌ The students’s books. → ✅ The students’ books. A regular plural ending in -s takes only an apostrophe, never a second s.
• ❌ The car of my brother. → ✅ My brother’s car. For people, English strongly prefers the ’s form over an of-phrase.
• ❌ Its my mother’s bag. → ✅ It’s my mother’s bag. It’s = it is; the belonging is shown on mother’s.
• ❌ Tom’s and Mia’s flat. (one shared flat) → ✅ Tom and Mia’s flat. For joint ownership, only the last owner takes ’s.

A short conversation

A: Whose bag is this? B: I think it’s Sara’s. Her name is on it. A: And these coats? B: Those are the children’s. We should put them on the kids’ hooks.

Usage notes

• ’s for people and groups. For people, animals, organisations and time expressions (a week’s holiday), the ’s form is normal. For objects, an of-phrase is common: the leg of the table rather than the table’s leg.
• Names ending in -s. Both James’s and James’ are accepted; many style guides prefer James’s because that is how it is said. Pick one and stay consistent.
• Joint vs separate ownership. Tom and Mia’s flat = one flat they share. Tom’s and Mia’s flats = two different flats.
• The apostrophe is not a plural marker. This is the single most common apostrophe error in English. A plural is just the noun + s with no apostrophe.

Compared with…

• Possessive adjectives. The possessive ’s names the owner (Sara’s car), while a possessive adjective replaces the name with a fixed word before the noun (her car). Use ’s to say who; use the adjective once the owner is already known. See Possessive Adjectives.
• The of-structure. English has two ways to show belonging: Sara’s car and the car of Sara. For people and animals the ’s form is far more natural; the of-phrase suits objects and longer descriptions (the title of the book). Both are built on the same plural rules you practise in Plural Nouns.

Quick recap before you practise.

Practice

Quiz

Recap cheat-sheet

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