Which to use
“you” is a pronoun and “your” is a determiner - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #11
- “you” frequency rank
- #31
- “your” frequency rank
- 42
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | you | your |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | The people spoken, or written to, as an object. | Belonging to you; of you; related to you (singular; one owner). |
Where the eye mixes you and your
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: you is /ju/ while your is /jɔː(ɹ)/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “you” sits inside “your”, and the parts of speech differ too (pronoun vs determiner), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 42, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
you is recorded at frequency rank #11, classified as apron, pronounced /ju/. your is at rank #31, tagged as adet, pronounced /jɔː(ɹ)/.
Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.
With a confusion score of 42, this pair ranks #529,970 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of you vs your
Shared letters: ouy. Private to "you": -. Private to "your": r.
"you" · 3 letters · shape VVV · "your" · 4 letters · shape VVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- your ← oyur · yoru · yourr · yuor · yyour