Telling the difference

ever since i can remember i have always had a problem telling the difference between 'their' and 'there', 'than' and 'then'. i did not understand how people were trying to explain it to me so i just started randomly placing these words in to my sentences, hoping to God that i was using the right one for that particular sentence. sadly God nor luck were ever on my side, so i always got them wrong. Until a friend of mine explained to me in an extremely simple and easy way that even a monkey could understand. 'their' is for people and 'there' is for things that are not people. 'then' is for time and 'than' is for whatever the heck has nothing to do with time. simple, easy to understand, and is the only thing that i had finally grasped perfectly in the grammar world.

RIGHT WAY FOR 'THERE'

There is no way i am getting into that death trap you call a car

There are no eggs in this egg carton

RIGHT WAY FOR 'THEIR'

That house over there is not theirs

Even though they adopted him, they still love him as if her were one of their own

WRONG WAY FOR 'THEIR' AND 'THERE'

There house is no bigger than my dining room

Hey look over their!

RIGHT WAY FOR 'THEN'

And then the whole family went to the zoo

My mother used to say that "back then we never really knew that segregation was bad. we just thought it was normal"

RIGHT WAY FOR 'THAN'

I think that in today's society kids exercise a lot less than the previous generation

That kid over there is a lot thinner than i could ever be

WRONG WAY FOR 'THEN' AND 'THAN'

And than he told me that i was not cut out for the job because i was a woman and thought to be more sensitive then a man