Speak Faster!

Contractions are words that are created by combining two words into one word to make speech easier. One of the two words is usually a helping verb or also known as auxiliary verb. When we put the two words together, one or more letters are removed and replaced by an apostrophe as you can see below.

In the first example (I AM ), the  "I " is the subject and "AM" is the verb. We combine these two words by replacing the "A" in "AM" to an apostrophe. This is the same as the rest of the examples. We take out the first letter of the second word and replace it with an apostrophe.

These words are very common in informal conversations and writing. Being able to speak these contracted forms makes your speech more natural and can also make you sound more like a native speaker! There are many many more contractions (CAN'T, WOULDN'T, COULD'VE, THERE'S) but that is for some other time!

Try changing the two words in each sentence into one:
1.    He is from Argentina. _____________________________________________________________ 
2.   You are my hero. _________________________________________________________________ 
3.   You are not a student. ___________________________________________________________  
5.   They are my children. ____________________________________________________________  
6.   She is not hungry. ________________________________________________________________  
7.    I am thirsty. ______________________________________________________________________  
8.   We are almost home. ____________________________________________________________ 
9.   They are going to dinner. _________________________________________________________


Important thing to remember!

They are = They're ≠ Their
(They are is the same as they're but it does not have the same meaning as their)

You are = You're ≠ Your
(You are is the same as you're but it does not have the same meaning as your)