Possessive pronouns in German and their competent use

Pronouns exist in every language, and the German exception is not. Moreover, they are also divided into categories. And to one of those are the possessive pronouns. In German there is some specificity concerning the use of this part of speech, and it should be studied in more detail.

Fundamental rules

This part of speech, also called Possessivpronomen, is in most cases placed before certain nouns. Then the possessive pronouns in German serve as definitions. By the way, it should be noted that here everything is approximately the same as in the case of adjectives - they also necessarily agree with the nouns. They refer to gender, case and number. Otherwise, it will not work, because the possessive pronoun indicates the belonging of a particular object to a person. Without agreement with the noun, this part of the speech simply can not be used. Despite some resemblance to the Russian language, I must say that there are some differences. For example, if the "book" belongs to the female gender, then in German it is "it", that is, the middle genus. But many people make the mistake of translating all the words literally. One should forget about this and understand that other rules are in effect in the German language, and what we may seem illiterate for German speakers is absolutely normal and generally accepted.

Use by persons

If you deal with this topic, it will be much quicker to learn German. Possessive pronouns, the table of which is rather small in size, help to better navigate in terms of the use of certain words. It looks something like this:

Ich - mein (I'm mine).
Du - dein (you are yours).
Er - sein (he is his).
Sie - ihr (she is her).
Es - sein (his / her).
Wir - unser (we are ours).
Ihr - euer (you are yours).
Sie - Ihr (You are your).

Remembering the possessive pronouns in German is simple, just like using them in relation to one or the other noun. The only nuance is that the ending will be added to them, depending on which genus the word belongs to. So, for example Mein Leben (translation: "my life") remains unchanged, but Meine Meinung ("my opinion") is written with the letter "e" on the end. I would like to note with special attention the use of possessive pronouns for a third person. Here it is necessary to pay attention to the genus of the noun. In this case, the following rule applies: the male, as well as the middle, genus corresponds to sein. But female - only ihr.

Case matching

First of all, it should be noted that in Singular (singular), pronouns change as undefined articles. But in Plural (plural) - as certain. As an example, you can take the same word Leben ("life"). If you incline him to the female gender, the ending of the noun will only change once (in Genetiv), and it will look like this: ihrem Lebens. The pronouns themselves do not remain unchanged: Nominativ - ihr; Genetiv - ihres; Dativ - ihrem; Akkusativ - ihr. In the case of sein, by the way, declination is made in a similar way, and endings in nouns remain the same, changing only in the genitive case. This is the specific feature of the German language. The deviation of possessive pronouns can be easily remembered, memorized, how their endings change. Since there are only four cases, this is easy. Unlike irregular verbs, one does not need to learn a few hundred words - there is a principle, after understanding which, you can apply it to other nouns.

Identification of property

For the sake of justice, it should be noted that the possessive pronouns in German are quite similar in their usage to the rules in Russian. The only difference is that in German there is no such thing as "your". And this applies to all pronouns. Suppose, if you want to say "I packed my things", you need to use meine ("mine"). It will look like this: ich packte meine Sachen. In translation it will mean the same as in Russian, only meine here replaces the word "own". If it is necessary to say in the plural, that is, "we collected our things", then I will have to use unsere-wir packten Ihre Sachen. Having understood this principle, one can further understand the use of such possessive pronouns independently (ihr-eure; er-deine; sie-ihre; etc.).

Assimilation of material

To better understand the material, you need to train regularly, learning German (possessive pronouns). Exercises, fortunately, for this there. Of course, the best training is immersion in the language environment, because only communicating with the native speaker of the German language, you can fully experience its specifics. But in this case, you can just practice by slanting the pronouns in relation to one or the other nouns. It is best to take one word and change it by case and person. This not only helps to understand the topic, it also expands vocabulary and improves memory. Therefore, regularly exercising in this way, it will be possible to quickly learn the subject and apply the acquired skills in the future.