A1 · Articles
mein, dein, sein, ihr
mein Buch, meine Tasche, meinen Schlüssel
Nine possessives that all decline like ein — and one word that means both his and her.
German has one possessive for each person — mein, dein, sein, ihr, unser, euer, ihr, Ihr — and every one of them takes exactly the same endings as ein and kein. Learning the ein pattern once therefore settles all nine at a stroke.
The ending agrees with the thing owned, not with the owner. Sein Buch is his book and seine Tasche is his bag: the owner has not changed, only the gender of the object. This is the opposite of the instinct English builds, where "his" and "her" agree with the owner and never change shape.
And German has one form doing two jobs. Ihr means "her", "their" and — capitalised — "your" in the polite form. Three meanings, one word, told apart by context and by a capital letter.
Die Form
| ich → mein | mein Buch, meine Tasche |
| du → dein | dein Buch, deine Tasche |
| er, es → sein | sein Buch, seine Tasche |
| sie → ihr | ihr Buch, ihre Tasche |
| wir → unser, ihr → euer | unser Haus, euer Haus |
| sie, Sie → ihr, Ihr | ihre Sachen, Ihre Sachen |
Die Regeln im Einzelnen
Possessives take the same endings as ein and kein.
Ich sehe meinen Bruder.I can see my brother.
The ending follows the thing owned, not the owner.
sein Buch, seine Taschehis book, his bag
The plural always takes -e, whatever the gender.
meine Bücher, meine Taschenmy books, my bags
Ihr with a capital letter is the polite your.
Ist das Ihr Mantel?Is that your coat?
Genauer hingesehen
Why euer loses a letter
The one irregularity in the set is euer, which drops its second e as soon as an ending is added: euer Haus but eure Wohnung, euren Garten, eurem Kind. Writing "euere" is not wrong historically and is not what anybody says today.
Unser behaves the same way in speech — unsre, unsren — but keeps the full form in writing. So the safe rule is: shorten euer always, leave unser alone.
Ausnahmen und Sonderfälle (2)
-
a body part or an item of clothing is meant
German often uses the definite article and a dative pronoun instead.
Ich wasche mir die Hände.I am washing my hands.
Ownership is already obvious, so the possessive would be redundant and sounds heavy.
-
the possessive stands alone without a noun
it takes the der-endings instead.
Das ist nicht mein Buch, es ist deins.That is not my book, it is yours.
With no noun following, the possessive has to carry the full marking itself.
Woran man es erkennt
- mein
- dein
- sein
- ihr
- unser
- euer
- Ihr
Beispielsätze
Das ist mein Bruder.That is my brother.
Wo ist deine Jacke?Where is your jacket?
Sie hat ihren Schlüssel vergessen.She has forgotten her key.
Unser Haus liegt am Wald.Our house is by the woods.
Haben Sie Ihre Karte dabei?Have you got your card with you?
Noch 6 Beispielsätze
Mein Name ist Anna.My name is Anna.
Hast du deinen Ausweis dabei?Have you got your ID with you?
Er besucht seine Eltern.He is visiting his parents.
Ihre Antwort hat mich überrascht.Her answer surprised me.
Wir haben unser Auto verkauft.We have sold our car.
Wo sind eure Sachen?Where are your things?
Besonderheiten (2)
-
The genitive is not how German says whose
For a person, spoken German prefers <z>von</z> or a dative construction over the genitive: <z>das Auto von meinem Bruder</z>, or in the south and in speech everywhere <z>meinem Bruder sein Auto</z>. The written genitive <z>das Auto meines Bruders</z> is correct and noticeably more formal.
-
Names take a plain -s, without an apostrophe
<z>Annas Buch</z>, <z>Peters Auto</z> — no apostrophe in standard German, unlike English. An apostrophe appears only when the name already ends in an s-sound: <z>Hans’ Buch</z>.
Die typisch deutsche Falle
Aufgepasst
The possessive is chosen by who owns the thing and the ending by what is owned, and the two decisions are made separately. Here the owner is female, so the word is ihr; the key is masculine and in the accusative, so the ending is -en. Doing both at once is what causes the mistake — it helps to pick the stem first and only then look at the noun.
The stem is the owner, the ending is the thing.
Jetzt selbst
5 Aufgaben zu diesem Thema. Die Antworten werden im Browser geprüft; nichts davon verlässt Ihr Gerät.