Lesson 32 · German A1-2

Possessive Pronouns

Possessivpronomen

Back in Lesson 6 you learned mein/meine for "my." Today you get the rest of the set - his, her, our, your (plural) - and the good news is there's genuinely nothing new to learn about endings, only new stems.

Today's win: use the full possessive set (mein, dein, sein, ihr, unser, euer, Ihr) with correct gender endings, reusing exactly the pattern from ein/kein.

The full stem set

mein-my
dein-your (informal)
sein-his/its
ihr-her/their
unser-our
Ihr-your (formal)

Endings: identical to what you already know

Every possessive takes the exact same endings as ein (Lesson 4/7) and kein (Lesson 13) - masculine drops the ending in nominative, adds -en in accusative; feminine and plural always add -e:

Das ist sein Auto. (his car - neuter, no ending)
Das ist ihre Tasche. (her bag - feminine, -e)
Ich habe meinen Ausweis. (my ID - masculine accusative, -en, reusing Lesson 9's vocab)

Full table including euer's small spelling quirk: Reference - Possessives.

Try it out loud: point at three things (real or imagined) and say who they belong to, using at least three different possessive stems - mein, dein, sein/ihr.

Quick recall check

1. "His car." (neuter, no ending) - ______ Auto.

Show answer
Sein

2. "Her bag." (feminine) - ______ Tasche.

Show answer
Ihre

3. "My ID." (masculine accusative) - Ich habe ______ Ausweis.

Show answer
meinen

4. Which possessive endings does "unser" follow - its own, or ein/kein's?

Show answer
ein/kein's

5. Formal "your" possessive stem?

Show answer
Ihr

Primary source

Cross-checked against the Goethe-Institut A1 practice materials.

Unsure of a possessive ending in a specific sentence? Ask your teaching agent to check it.

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