FluencyLab
GrammarHub
Use whose to ask about ownership, and use possessive 's to show that a person or animal owns or is connected to something.
Overview
Use whose to ask about ownership, and use possessive 's to show that a person or animal owns or is connected to something.
Form and rules
Use Whose + noun...? to ask who something belongs to: Whose bag is this?
You can also ask Whose is this/that...? or Whose are these/those...?
Add 's to a singular name or noun: Maria's phone, the teacher's desk.
For regular plural nouns ending in -s, add only an apostrophe: my parents' house.
Do not confuse whose with who's. Who's means who is or who has.
A closer look
Whose asks about ownership. It can come before a noun or stand alone: Whose bag is this? Whose is this?
Possessive 's normally attaches to the owner: Maria's phone. For regular plural nouns ending in -s, possession is usually shown with an apostrophe after the s: my parents' house.
Examples
Whose jacket is this?
It's Daniel's jacket.
That's my sister's room.
My parents' car is blue.
Whose are these keys?
Common mistakes
Who's means who is or who has; whose asks about possession.
Use the possessive form directly before the possessed noun.
Ready to practise?
The test combines multiple choice, gap completion, error correction, and sentence building so students have to recognise and produce the grammar, not simply reread the rule.