3.7 Possessive adjectives
Possessive adjectives are those adjectives which refer to ownership, such as "your" and "his" in "What is your name?" or "What is his name?". We have already met some of them in the German equivalent of these questions "Wie ist Ihr Name?" or "Wie ist sein Name?". The full list of possessive adjectives is as follows:
Grammar 9: Nominative of possessive adjectives |
|
Masculine |
Feminine |
Neuter |
Plural |
My |
mein |
meine |
mein |
meine |
Your (sing.) |
dein Ihr |
deine Ihre |
dein Ihr |
deine Ihre |
His |
sein |
seine |
sein |
seine |
Her |
ihr |
ihre |
ihr |
ihre |
Its |
sein |
seine |
sein |
seine |
Our |
unser |
unsere |
unser |
unsere |
Your (plural) |
euer Ihr |
eure Ihre |
euer Ihr |
eure Ihre |
Their |
ihr |
ihre |
ihr |
ihre |
Her |
ihr |
ihre |
ihr |
ihre |
Its |
sein |
seine |
sein |
seine |
|
Once again, we find that the endings on all possessive adjectives change when they are in the accusative. We require a second table to explain these fully:
Grammar 10: Accusative of possessive adjectives |
|
Masculine |
Feminine |
Neuter |
Plural |
My |
meinen |
meine |
mein |
meine |
Your (sing.) |
deinen Ihren |
deine Ihre |
dein Ihr |
deine Ihre |
His |
seinen |
seine |
sein |
seine |
Her |
ihren |
ihre |
ihr |
ihre |
Its |
seinen |
seine |
sein |
seine |
Our |
unseren |
unsere |
unser |
unsere |
Your (plural) |
euren Ihren |
eure Ihre |
euer Ihr |
eure Ihre |
Their |
ihren |
ihre |
ihr |
ihre |
Her |
ihren |
ihre |
ihr |
ihre |
Its |
seinen |
seine |
sein |
seine |
|
Grammatical points
1) Be very careful to distinguish between Ihr (= "your" (polite)) and ihr (= "their; her"). The capital letter is crucial here!
2) The spelling of the various forms of euer, which means "your" when you are addressing more than one person informally, can prove difficult. When an ending is added to "euer", the second "-e-" of the stem disappears.
So whilst "your child" is "euer Kind", "your children" translates as "eure Kinder", and "your cat" is "eure Katze".
Chapter 3.8: Numbers - 1-20
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