Severn Spanish

Possessive pronouns III

 

Review/Introduction

You should be familiar with both the short and long forms of possessive adjectives by now — here’s a quick chart for you to brush up:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At this point you might be wondering what on earth a possessive pronoun is, and how it is different from a possessive adjective. In a lot of ways, they perform similar roles in a sentence: they indicate what belongs to who. However, they are different parts of speech, and because of that, they are used in different ways.

A possessive adjective is used to describe a noun.

A possessive adjective is used to replace a noun.

As an English example:

My car is red. (“My” is an adjective describing “car.”)

Mine is blue. (“Mine” is a pronoun that replaces whatever the blue thing is — we might assume “car” in this case.)

 

Possessive Pronouns in Spanish

The nice thing about Spanish possessive pronouns is that the words themselves are exactly the same as the long forms of the possessive adjectives:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The usage of the pronouns, however, is different from the usage of the adjectives. Instead of using the adjective in addition to the noun, you must identify the noun being possessed and replace it altogether with a possessive pronoun. Generally, the definite article is used with the possessive pronouns. And, as always, check for number and gender agreement.

Examples:

¿De qué color es tu mochila? La mía es roja. (What color is you backpack? Mine is red.)

¿Dónde están los lápices? Los míos están en mi pupitre. (Where are the pencils? Mine are on my desk.)

Nuestra casa es blanca. Pues, la nuestra es azul. (Our house is white. Well, ours is blue.)