You already know how to say my, your and her in English, and it costs you nothing: my book, my books, with my book — the word never changes. German charges rent. The stem tells you who owns the thing, and the ending tells you what the thing is and what job it does in the sentence. Two pieces of information, one small word.

That double job is the whole difficulty, and once you see it clearly, the rest is a short list of endings you already know from ein and kein. This guide walks through the stems, the endings, the two words that behave oddly (unser and euer), the standalone forms English speakers rarely get taught, and the situations where German quietly refuses to use a possessive at all.

First, a useful distinction

English lumps two things together. German keeps them apart, and so should you:

• Possessive determiners (Possessivartikel) sit in front of a noun: mein Hund — my dog.
• Possessive pronouns (Possessivpronomen) stand alone and replace the noun: Das ist meiner. — That’s mine.

They share a stem but take slightly different endings. Most textbooks and most learners call the first group “possessive pronouns” out of habit, so that is how you’ll usually see it labelled — just know there are two sets, and the second one appears in nearly every conversation about whose coffee this is.

The eight stems

These never change. Learn them once.

Note the capital Ihr. It is always written with a capital I, anywhere in the sentence, because it belongs to the formal Sie. In an email, Ihr Angebot means “your offer”; ihr Angebot means “her offer” or “their offer.”

The endings: agreement with the owned noun

Here is the rule that fixes everything: the stem agrees with the owner, the ending agrees with the noun that follows. If a woman owns a masculine noun in the accusative, you take ihr- from her and -en from the noun: Sie ruft ihren Mann an.

The endings are the ein-word endings — identical to kein. Full declension of mein:

Strip out the stem and you have a pattern that transfers to all eight words:

Three things worth noticing. The masculine and neuter are identical everywhere except the accusative — that -en is the single most common possessive error learners make. The bare, endingless form appears in only three cells. And in the dative plural the noun itself also takes an -n: mit meinen Freunden, in unseren Städten.

Seeing it in one family

• Mein Bruder wohnt in Hamburg. — subject, nominative masculine.
• Ich besuche meinen Bruder. — direct object, accusative masculine.
• Ich schreibe meinem Bruder. — indirect object, dative masculine.
• Das ist das Fahrrad meines Bruders. — genitive masculine.
• Ich helfe meiner Schwester. — helfen takes the dative, so feminine -er.

The two awkward ones: unser and euer

Euer loses the second e as soon as an ending is attached. Write eure, not euere:

• Euer Zug fährt um acht. (no ending)
• Habt ihr eure Tickets? (accusative plural)
• Ich fahre mit eurem Auto. (dative neuter)
• Wie heißt euer Hund? / Ich mag euren Hund.

Unser is more forgiving: it keeps its e in careful written German — unsere Kinder, mit unserem Nachbarn, die Farbe unseres Hauses. In speech and song you will hear unsre, unsern, and nobody will blink, but the full forms are always safe.

sein or ihr? Match the owner, not the object

This trips up English speakers less than the endings do, but the errors are more visible when they happen. Sein belongs to a masculine or neuter owner; ihr to a feminine owner or a plural one.

• Thomas sucht seinen Schlüssel. — Thomas is looking for his key.
• Anna sucht ihren Schlüssel. — Anna is looking for her key.
• Die Studenten holen ihre Bücher. — The students are getting their books.

Grammatical gender wins over biological sense, so das Mädchen (neuter) technically takes sein: Das Mädchen und seine Freundin. Modern usage increasingly prefers ihre here, and both are heard. Also remember that the impersonal man takes sein: Man soll seine Hausaufgaben machen.

Standalone possessive pronouns: “That one’s mine”

When the noun disappears, the pronoun has to carry the gender information itself. Two cells change: the masculine nominative gains -er, and the neuter nominative and accusative gain -(e)s.

• „Ist das dein Kuli?” – „Nein, meiner ist blau.” (der Kuli)
• „Wessen Tasche ist das?” – „Das ist meine.” (die Tasche)
• „Nimm mein Handy.” – „Danke, ich habe meins dabei.” (das Handy)
• Deine Eltern kommen, unsere nicht.

The forms meins and meines are both correct; meins is normal in speech. You may also meet der meine or der meinige in older literature — recognise them, don’t use them.

Where German avoids the possessive

Three habits will make your German sound noticeably less translated.

Body parts take the definite article plus a dative pronoun. German says “I brush myself the teeth”: Ich putze mir die Zähne, not meine Zähne. Likewise Er hat sich das Bein gebrochen and Wäschst du dir die Hände?

Ownership is often expressed with gehören + dative. Das Buch gehört mir. — The book is mine. This is far more common than a standalone pronoun in a full statement.

The genitive frequently gives way to von + dative in speech. Written: das Auto meines Vaters. Spoken: das Auto von meinem Vater. With names, the -s genitive is everywhere: Annas Wohnung, Peters Idee — no apostrophe in standard German.

The five mistakes worth memorising

1. Forgetting -en in the masculine accusative: Ich sehe meinen Vater, never mein Vater.
2. Writing euere instead of eure.
3. Adding an ending to the owner instead of the object: it is ihr Bruder even when several sisters share him.
4. Lower-case ihr in a formal letter where Ihr is meant.
5. Using a possessive with body parts: Ich wasche mir die Haare, not meine Haare.

Quick self-test

1. Ich fahre mit ____ (mein) Fahrrad zur Arbeit.
2. Hast du ____ (dein) Pass dabei?
3. Sie telefoniert mit ____ (ihr) Mutter.
4. Wir spielen mit ____ (unser) Kindern im Park.
5. „Ist das dein Schirm?” – „Nein, ____ ist schwarz.”

Answers: 1. meinem (dative neuter) · 2. deinen (accusative masculine) · 3. ihrer (dative feminine) · 4. unseren (dative plural) · 5. meiner (masculine standalone).

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between a possessive determiner and a possessive pronoun in German?

A possessive determiner comes before a noun and takes ein-word endings: mein Hund, meinen Hund, meinem Hund. A possessive pronoun replaces the noun entirely and takes two extra endings — masculine nominative -er and neuter -(e)s: Das ist meiner, Das ist meins. Everything else is identical, so learning the determiner table first gets you roughly 80% of the pronoun table for free.

How do I know whether ihr means “her”, “their” or “your”?

Context and capitalisation. Capitalised Ihr anywhere in a sentence is the formal “your”. Lower-case ihr is “her” or “their”, and only the surrounding sentence tells you which: Anna und ihr Hund is clearly “her”, while Die Nachbarn und ihr Hund is “their”. Watch out for the separate word ihr meaning “you (plural)” as a subject pronoun — same spelling, different job.

Do I really need the genitive forms?

For recognition, yes — the genitive is alive and well in journalism, formal writing, contracts and academic German, so die Rolle seiner Familie will appear constantly in reading. For production at A2–B1, von + dative covers you in conversation. Learn the four genitive endings passively, then activate them when you move toward B2 writing.

What is the fastest way to stop making ending mistakes?

Stop drilling the possessives on their own. The endings are shared with ein, kein and negation, so practise all of them together in short sentences where a verb forces the case: helfen and mit force dative, haben and für force accusative. Five spoken sentences a day using verbs you already know beats an hour of silent table-copying.

Possessives are one of those areas where a tutor spots in thirty seconds what a textbook can’t: whether you’re pausing because you don’t know the gender of the noun, or because you’re not sure which case the verb wants. If you’d like that kind of targeted feedback, book a session with a native German tutor at The Cognitio and turn these tables into sentences you say without thinking.