Chapter 3: The Family

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3.7 Possessive adjectives

Chapter 3: The Family
Overview
3.1 Conversation:
Im Studio (1)
3.2 How old are you?
3.3 Conversation:
Im Studio (2)
3.4 Plurals of
German nouns
3.5 Indefinite articles

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

3.6 The accusative case

My

mein

meine

mein

meine

3.7 Possessive adjectives

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

Index

Their

ihr

ihre

ihr

ihre

Chapter 1

Her

ihr

ihre

ihr

ihre

Chapter 2

Its

sein

seine

sein

seine

3.8 Numbers: 1-20

3.9 Background:
German Families
3.10 Vocabulary:
The Family
3.11 Vocabulary: Pets
3.12 Germans and
their dogs
Exercises

Beginners' German

Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5

Paul Joyce German

Beginners German

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:

Pronunciation

Grammar 10: Accusative of possessive adjectives

German Alphabet

Masculine

Feminine

Neuter

Plural

My

meinen

meine

mein

meine

Your
(sing.)

deinen
Ihren

deine
Ihre

dein
Ihr

deine
Ihre

His

seinen

seine

sein

seine

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Her

ihren

ihre

ihr

ihre

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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

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ihren

ihre

ihr

ihre

Its

seinen

seine

sein

seine

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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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