Level: beginner
We add 's to singular nouns to show possession:
We are having a party at John's house.
Michael drove his friend's car.
We add ' to plural nouns ending in -s:
This is my parents' house.
Those are ladies' shoes.
But we use 's with irregular plural nouns:
| men | women | children | people |
These are men's shoes.
Children's clothes are very expensive.
We can use a possessive instead of a full noun phrase to avoid repeating words:
Is that John's car?
No, it's Mary's. (NOT No, it's Mary's [car].)Whose coat is this?
It's my wife's. (NOT It's my wife's [coat].)
- Possessives: nouns 1
- Possessives: nouns 2
Do you need to improve your English grammar?
Join thousands of learners from around the world who are improving their English grammar with our online courses.
Hello asr09,
Yes, both of those sentences are fine. You can have multiple possessives in one sentence, though you need to be careful that the sentence does not become hard to follow. Two possessives is certainly fine, but more than that is unusual.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Lucie,
I understand the person's name is Cerys. In this case both forms are possible. In the same way we can say either of these:
Best wishes,
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi joory hoory,
You need to look at the example sentence and decide if the sentence is talking about one person or more than one.
Best wishes,
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team