Possessive Pronouns and Possessive Adjectives

Possessive Adjectives

mein – my
dein – your

sein – his
ihr – her
sein – its

unser – our
euer – your (including more than one owner)
ihr – their
Ihr – your

Possessive adjectives get an -e ending for the feminine and the plural. The masculine and neuter forms are the basic form, e.g.: mein – meine – mein; meine. The gender of the following noun defines its form. Practically, possessive adjectives behave in the same way as the indefinite article (ein, eine, ein) and its negative form (kein, keine, kein, plural: keine).

Examples:

mein Haus = my house (Haus is neuter: das Haus)
deine Schwester = your sister (Schwester is feminine: die Schwester)
unser Bruder = our brother (Bruder is masculine: der Bruder)
ihr Buch = their book (Buch is neuter: das Buch)
ihre Bücher = their boos (Bücher is plural)

Euer with the ending -e (euere) can leave the e before the r: eure. Both forms (euere and eure) are used:

eure Tische or euere Tische = your tables (including more than one owner)
eure Mutter, euere Mutter = your mother (including more than one owner)

Possessive Pronouns

They stand alone, without a noun after them and they take the endings of the definite article depending on the gender of the noun that the pronoun refers to:

meiner, meine, meines – mine
deiner, deine, deines – yours

seiner, seine, seines – his
ihrer, ihre, ihres – hers
seiner, seine, seines – its

unserer, unsere, unseres – ours
eu(e)rer, eu(e)re, eu(e)res – yours (including more than one owner)
ihrer, ihre, ihres – theirs

Examples:

Der Tisch ist meiner – The table is mine.
Hier ist eine Uhr. Sie ist unsere – Here is a watch. It is ours.
Dieses Buch ist seines – This book is his.

NB: 3rd person singular and plural pronouns and adjectives can be used referring to not only people but things too, e.g.:

Ich habe einen Tisch. Seine Farbe gefällt mir gut = I have a table. I like its colour very much.

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