Your: /yʊər, yɔr, yoʊr; unstressed yər/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [yoor, yawr, yohr; unstressed yer]
1. (a form of the possessive case of you used as an attributive adjective): Your jacket is in that closet. I like your idea. Compare yours.
You're: /yʊər; unstressed yər/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [yoor; unstressed yer]
1. contraction of you are: You're certain that's right?
What does this mean?
It means that when you use the word "your" you are implying that someone has ownership of an object, and when you use the contraction "you're" (you+are) you are implying that a person is something.
If you're having trouble trying to figure out which to use, just take a moment and think. Let's take the example "your welcome" how can we tell if this is right or wrong? Here's a little trick, we're going to write our sentence backwards "welcome your", now since it's the possessive "your" we're going to add the word "of" in front of it and an "s" at the and of "your":
"welcome of yours"
That doesn't sound like what we're trying to say now does it? Let's try something similar for "you're".
"You're welcome"
"Welcome you're"
Now we're going to take "you're" apart:
"Welcome you are"
Well now, that sounds more like what we're trying to say (and more like Yoda.
Now I honestly think a lot of you who are reading this are smarter than to have to take your whole sentence apart to figure out if you're using the right word, but then again, I know a lot of very smart and talented people who still use them wrong, which is a scary thing to me. If we're so stupid we can't even use our own language correctly what other repercussions could possibly follow suit?
...oh...right...
Wake up people. Do you honestly think anyone who has a hint of intelligence is going to pay you any attention if you can't even speak coherently?
-Kibs
