Initial-letter contraction
“their” in braille
Two cells for the whole word, however long it is — 5 letters here, a saving of 3 cells. “their” is the 56th most common word in English.
Dots 4-5-6, then dots 2-3-4-6
Unicode ⠸⠮ — 5 letters in two cells
How to recognise it
The 56th most common word in English and the most common member of the dots 4-5-6 group, which is otherwise made up of quiet words like “spirit” and “cannot”. Its second cell is the “the” groupsign — and that is the joke of this trio: “there”, “these” and “their” are three of the commonest words in the language, they are near-homophones that writers confuse constantly, and braille distinguishes all three with a single cell that most learners meet on day one.
The second cell is the “the” sign, not a t
You would expect a t. What follows the prefix is the the groupsign, chosen for the shape of the word rather than its spelling. Nine of the thirty-three do this.
Learn it with its two sisters
“their” and “there” and “these” are written with the same second cell. Only the prefix separates them, which means the hard work of telling them apart is done by one cell — and learning them as a set is far quicker than meeting them one at a time.
Where it may appear inside a longer word
Only at the start and of a word. UEB allows these inside a longer word only where the letters keep their meaning, which spelling cannot decide, so this site settled it by counting: every English word containing “their”, checked against the reference, split by where the letters sat.
In the in the middle and at the end the letters are the contraction less than half the time, so using it there would be wrong more often than right.
You will meet it as a word, not a fragment
The rule allows it inside a longer word, but none of the 5,000 commonest English words actually takes it there. Some on this list earn most of their keep buried in longer words — “part” turns up in nineteen of them — but this is not one of those. What it does have is the word itself: ranked 56th in English, you will meet “their” standing on its own often enough to want the two cells rather than the 5 letters spelled out.
The other 5 words under dots 4-5-6
A small group, so the prefix is already a strong clue.
Check your own text
Type “their” into the translator with Grade 2 selected to see both cells, or take the full list.
“their” in braille as an image
Both cells as a picture: dots 4, 5 and 6, then dots 2, 3, 4 and 6 — the whole word in two cells rather than 5 letters.
