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German Possessive Pronoun


Definition: In German, a possessive pronoun (or possessive adjective) never occurs with an article. An expression like einer meiner Freunde is not an exception to this rule, because it is a genitive meaning "one of my friends". they replace a noun.

Examples in German:

“it is my house” becomes “it is mine”. but while in English you can use “mine” to the singular and feminine, in German you have to add an “e” to for the feminine.

With a Noun
The possessive pronouns are declined (according to case, gender and number of the possessed object) in the same way is the indefinite articles. The declension of "euer" differs in that the stem "eur" is used, except for the base form: euer Haus, eure Häuser.

Singular
 
mine mein/e
yours mein/e
yours(formal) Ihr/e
his, hers, its sein/e
 
Plural
 
our unser/e
yours(familiar) eur/e
yours(formal) Ihr/e
theirs ihr/e

Without Noun
Sometimes you don't want to say "This is my house", but just "This is mine". In this case, the same possessive pronouns are used in German, but the strong adjective declension is used. This declension only differs in three points:

  • In nominative masculine singular, use -er instead of -
  • In nominative neuter singular, use -s instead of -
  • In accusative neuter singular, use -s instead of -
So basically the only difference lies in the forms that have the indefinite article ein. Those special possessive pronouns are virtually never used in genitive case.

Examples in German:

Is that his house? No, it's yours.
Ist das sein Haus? Nein, das ist deins.

Is this backpack yours? No, mine is black.
Gehört dieser Rucksack dir? Nein, meiner ist schwarz.

Have you given my neighbor your keys?
No, we have given them to ours.

Haben Sie meinem Nachbarn Ihre Schlüssel gegeben?
Nein, wir haben sie unserem gegeben.


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German Grammar