There, Their or They're? The 10-Second Test

By Mir Hadi · October 7, 2026

These three words sound identical, so your ear is no help. Each one has a test you can run in your head in about ten seconds.

One test per word

They’re is the easiest. It is short for “they are”. Read the sentence with “they are” in place of the word. If it still makes sense, use they’re. If it sounds wrong, it is one of the other two. The apostrophe marks the spot where the A of are dropped out.

Their means something belongs to them. Swap in “our”. If “our” fits, the word is their. (“Our car is outside” works, so “their car is outside” is right.) The word also has heir inside it, and an heir is someone who ends up owning things.

There is everything else: a place (“over there”), or the filler word that starts a sentence (“there is”, “there are”). It has here inside it, which is a handy reminder that it points at a location. If neither of the first two tests passed, there is your word.

Run them in that order: they are, then our, then there.

Eight examples with the answer

1. ___ going to be late again. “They are going to be late” works, so: They’re.
2. Have you seen ___ new house? “Our new house” works: their.
3. Put the boxes over ___. Not “they are”, not “our”: there.
4. ___ are three reasons to wait. The filler that starts a sentence: There.
5. ___ dog chewed ___ shoes. Both mean belonging to them: Their dog chewed their shoes.
6. I think ___ right about this. “They are right” works: they’re.
7. We drove ___ in the rain. A place: there.
8. ___ sure ___ keys are somewhere around ___. “They are sure” (they’re), “our keys” (their), a place (there): They’re sure their keys are somewhere around there.

A worked example: fixing a paragraph

Here is a short paragraph with five mistakes in it:

Their going to the coast on Saturday. There car is still in the garage, so they’ve borrowed a van from they’re neighbours. Their’s a café halfway, and they always stop their.

Take each one through the tests in order.

1. “Their going”: “they are going” makes sense, so it should be They’re.
2. “There car”: “they are car” fails, “our car” works, so Their.
3. “they’re neighbours”: “from they are neighbours” fails, “from our neighbours” works, so their.
4. “Their’s a café”: this one is a contraction of “there is”, so There’s.
5. “stop their”: “stop they are” and “stop our” both fail. It is a place, so there.

The corrected version:

They’re going to the coast on Saturday. Their car is still in the garage, so they’ve borrowed a van from their neighbours. There’s a café halfway, and they always stop there.

A spell checker would let most of these through, because their, there and they’re are all correctly spelled words. You have to run the test yourself.

The cases people still get wrong

There’s vs theirs. There’s is “there is” and always has an apostrophe: “there’s a problem”. Theirs means belonging to them, like ours and yours, and never takes an apostrophe: “the blue one is theirs”. In modern English there is no their’s; Wiktionary lists it only as an obsolete form and a misspelling.

They’re going vs their going. “Their going” is almost always a mistake for “they’re going” (“they are going to the shop”). The only time their going is right is when “going” is a noun, as in “their going was a surprise to everyone”, and you will rarely need it.

On there own. The phrase is on their own, because “on our own” fits. The same goes for in their place, at their house and for their sake.

Over there vs over their. Over there is always the place: “put it over there”. Over their is only right when something of theirs follows: “the ball flew over their heads”. If the sentence ends straight after “over ___”, the word is there.

Their are. A slip of the fingers more than a gap in knowledge. “Our are” and “they are are” both fail, so it is there are.

A six-sentence quiz

1. ___ not coming to the party.
2. The children left ___ bags on the bus.
3. Is anyone ___?
4. ___ a reason the shop is closed.
5. That table is ___, not ours.
6. ___ happy with ___ new teacher.

Where their came from

Their is a loanword. English took it from the Old Norse þeirra, and they came the same way, from þeir (Wikipedia lists both). Our post on words English borrowed covers what else the Vikings left behind.

Related

This trio is the most searched of all the sound-alike pairs. For your/you’re, its/it’s, affect/effect and the rest, see 30 commonly confused English words.