A1 · Articles
Possessives: mein, dein, sein, ihr
mein Buch, meine Tasche, meinen Schlüssel
Seven possessives that all decline like ein — and one word that means her, their and the polite your.
At a glance
- Remember
- The stem is the owner, the ending is the thing.
- Form
- mein Buch, meine Tascheich → mein
- Signal words
- mein
- dein
- sein
- ihr
- unser
- euer
- Ihr
- Trap
- Wrong:Sie sucht seinen Schlüssel. (meaning her own)Right:Sie sucht ihren Schlüssel.
Your turn
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The form
The patterns at a glance
Each row first says when or what the pattern is used for, then gives an example in German.
| 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 |
The rules one by one
The form this topic is aboutThe word that calls for it
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
In the nominative and accusative 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?
Example sentences
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?
6 more example sentences
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?
The trap English speakers fall into
Watch out
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 full explanation
Read it all · about 1 min
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 of them 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.
A closer look
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. The long form "euere" is still a permitted spelling, but it is rare and the short one is what people write and say.
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.
Exceptions and special cases2
Exception
When a body part or an item of clothing is meant
then German often uses the definite article and a dative pronoun instead.
Ich wasche mir die Hände.I am washing my hands.
Why? Ownership is already obvious, so the possessive would be redundant and sounds heavy.
Exception
When the possessive stands alone without a noun
then it takes the der-endings instead.
Das ist nicht mein Buch, es ist deins.That is not my book, it is yours.
Why? With no noun following, the possessive has to carry the full marking itself.
Worth knowing2
Worth knowing
The genitive is not how German says whose
For a person, spoken German prefers von or a dative construction over the genitive: das Auto von meinem Bruder, or in very colloquial, often regional speech meinem Bruder sein Auto. The written genitive das Auto meines Bruders is correct and noticeably more formal.
Worth knowing
Names take a plain -s, without an apostrophe
Annas Buch, Peters Auto — no apostrophe in standard German, unlike English. An apostrophe appears only when the name already ends in an s-sound: Hans’ Buch.
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The verbs on this page, in every form: sein · haben · liegen · sehen · vergessen