| Possessive Adjectives (Short Form) | ||||||||||||||||
| Spanish for Beginners | ||||||||||||||||
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Unlike English, Spanish has two forms of possessive adjectives, a short form that is used before nouns, and a long form that is used after nouns. Long-form pronouns will be explained in another lesson; here are the short-form possessive adjectives (sometimes known as possessive determiners):
Note that the possessive adjectives vary by number and gender. The change is with the nouns they modify, not with the person(s) who own or possess the object. Examples: Es nuestro coche. (It is our car.) Es nuestra casa. (It is our house.) Son nuestros coches. (They are our cars.) Son nuestras casas. (They are our houses.)As you might imagine, su and sus can be ambiguous, since they can mean "his," "her," "its," "your" or "their." If the use of su or sus doesn't make the sentence clear, you can use de followed by a prepositional pronoun. Examples: Quiero comprar su casa. (I want to buy his/her/your/their house.) Quiero comprar la casa de él. (I want to by his house.) Quiero comprar la casa de ella. (I want to by her house.) Quiero comprar la casa de usted. (I want to buy your house.) Quiero comprar la casa de ellos. I want to buy their house.In some areas, de él, de ella and de ellos are preferred over su and sus for saying "his," "her" and "their," even where no ambiguity is present. Overuse of the possessive adjectives: The possessive adjectives are used in most cases in the same way as they are used in English. However, you should be aware that in many instances — especially when speaking of body parts, clothing and items intimately associated with an individual — Spanish uses the definite article (el, la, los or las), the equivalent of "the," instead of possessive adjectives. Examples: Sam arregla el pelo. (Sam is combing his hair.) Ella juntó las manos para orar. (She joined her hands to pray.) Ricardo rompió los anteojos. (Ricardo broke his glasses.)Repetition of possessive adjectives: In English, it common to use a single possessive adjective to refer to more than one noun. In Spanish, a single posessive adjective can refer to only one noun, unless the multiple nouns refer to the same persons or objects. For example, son mis amigos y hermanos would mean "they are my friends and siblings (referring the same people)," while son mis amigos y mis hermanos would mean "they are my friends and siblings (referring to different people)." Similarly, "my cats and dogs" would be translated as mis gatos y mis perros.
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