Level: beginner
| Subject | Object | Possessive adjective | Possessive pronoun |
|---|---|---|---|
| I | me | my | mine |
| you | you | your | yours |
| he | him | his | his |
| she | her | her | hers |
| it | it | its | - |
| we | us | our | ours |
| they | them | their | theirs |
| Be careful! |
|---|
Possessive pronouns do not have an apostrophe:
|
We can use a possessive pronoun instead of a full noun phrase to avoid repeating words:
Is that John's car?
No, it's mine. (INSTEAD OF No, it's [my car].)Whose coat is this?
Is it yours? (INSTEAD OF Is it [your coat]?)Her coat is grey.
Mine is brown. (INSTEAD OF[My coat]is brown.)
- Possessives: pronouns 1
Level: intermediate
We can use possessive pronouns and nouns after of. We can say:
Susan is one of my friends. > Susan is a friend of mine.
(NOT Susan is a friendof me.)I am one of Susan's friends. > I am a friend of Susan's.
(NOT I am a friendof Susan.)
- Possessives: pronouns 2
Average
Hello, Can you help me choose the correct answer
There are a lot of pastimes that young people like, and one of ________ is mountain climbing.
A. them B. theirs
Hello Sandy Nguyen,
After a prepostion ('of') we need an object, so the object pronoun 'them' is correct here.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
I have been taught that using 'here' and 'there' should not be followed by possessive pronouns or possessive nouns. However, I have come across sentences that seem to contradict this rule. Can anyone provide clarification on whether it is correct to use possessives after 'here' and 'there'?
Examples of what I'm asking about include: 'Here is my pen' and 'There is his book.' Are these grammatically correct? Thank you.
Hello s032,
Those sentences are perfectly fine. There's no problem using possessive determiners (my, your, his etc are actually possessive determiners rather than pronouns) in this way with here/there.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Why isn't there a possessive pronoun for it?
Hello Obied,
We don't really use the possessive pronoun 'its' by itself. The only use of 'its' as a possessive pronoun (and not very commonly) is in the phrase 'its own' as in 'it had a life of its own'.
You can see a little more about this on this Cambridge Dictionary page if you like, but since it is only used with other pronouns, we've not included it here.
Sorry for any confusion and thanks for pointing it out to us!
Best wishes,
Kirk
LearnEnglish team
Hi everyone,
So I had a few doubts while doing possessives.
1. The dog wagged its tail.
Here is ‘its’ a possessive pronoun or possessive adjective?
2. Did the cat eat all of its food?
Here is ‘its’ a possessive pronoun or possessive adjective?
Thanks
Hi aru sha,
Both are possessive adjectives, as they are followed by nouns. A pronoun would not be followed by a noun.
Additionally, it's much less common to use "its" as a possessive pronoun than it is to use "his" or "hers", for example. That's why it's absent in our table on the table above under 'possessive pronoun'.
I hope that helps.
Jonathan
LearnEnglish team
In both of the cases, "its" is being used as a possessive adjective as in the case of the dog "its" is describing the dog's tail and in the case of the cat "its" is describing the cat's food, not the dog or it's tail not the cat and it's food, I hope this helps
hello hope everyone's having a nice day my question is:
is it good if i say is that your car? aInd i answer yeap that's my car
why is it incorrect underlining your example: is that john's car?not it's mine that's correct right? but what if say is that jhon's car? not it's my car?
Hello arianni,
I'm sorry if the page is confusing. The crossed-out forms are not wrong but we tend to avoid repeating the words in the question.
Is that John's car?
1. No, it's mine.
2. No, it's my car.
Sentence 2 is not incorrect but sentence 1 is much more common.
I hope that clarifies it.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi Team,
In the following example (used above):
We can use a possessive pronoun instead of a full noun phrase to avoid repeating words:
Is that John's car?
No, it's mine. (NOT No, it's [my car].)
What is so wrong about using: No, it's my car.
Thanks in advance,
Mara
Hello Mara,
There's nothing wrong with that, though we often choose shorter phrases when we think the meaning is clear. That's why people would often say 'No, it's mine' instead of 'No, it's my car'. But strictly speaking, it's not necessary.
All the best,
Kirk
LearnEnglish team
Change these into Phrases:
1) the laptop of my friend
2) this is the cat of Ali
3) this car belongs to my father
4 )the dog of my neighbour shot by a police
Thanks in advance
Hi Freeman,
I'm not totally sure if I have understood the question, but perhaps you need to make a noun phrase, e.g. (1) my friend's laptop?
Jonathan
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi
Is this sentence correct?
Don't spill the cat's milk. It's its.
Hi y Hisham al Lubbad,
Grammatically the sentence is fine. However, I don't think we would ever say this as stylistically it sounds horrible and may be ambiguous.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi Maahir,
Good question! Here is the explanation.
Put the apostrophe after 's' if the noun already ends in 's'. This includes most plural nouns, and some singular nouns too. For example:
Otherwise, put the apostrophe before 's'. For example:
So, for your Q1, the important question is: what is the man's name? If it is 'Mr Smith', option a is correct. If it is 'Mr Smiths', option b is correct. 'Smith' is a very common surname. 'Smiths' is less common, but it does exist.
For Q2, both options again are grammatically correct, but the question is: how many neighbours own this car? The answers mean the car belongs to (a) one neighbour, or (b) more than one neighbour.
Yes, you can say This book is my brother's :)
I hope that helps.
Jonathan
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi Maahir,
OK, I understand. I can't find those questions on this page. Can you let me know the page where you saw those questions, so that I can check them?
Best wishes,
Jonathan
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi Maahir,
OK, thanks, I've found them :)
You can add an ‘s’ to a surname, to mean ‘all the people in that family’. For example:
In that question, it says The party was organised by the Smith family. “The Smith family” = “The Smiths”, and to make it possessive, we add an apostrophe after ‘s’ (not before it, because it already ends in ‘s’). So, we can say:
(It’s not correct to say “It was the Smith’s party” because the party was by the whole family, not just one person, and also the definite article isn’t used with surnames in the singular).
Another option is to use the word ‘family’, and say It was the Smith family’s party. The meaning is the same. (Notice it’s not correct to say “the Smiths family” – with “family”, the surname should be in the singular).
So, in sentence Q2 in your first message, you can say “I spent my weekend with Mr. Smith's family” or “I spent my weekend with the Smiths”.
Does that make sense?
Jonathan
HI
Hello Fanny.C,
Yes, only the first one is correct. There is no need for a possessive form when we use 'belongs to'.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello rajrani17,
Without knowing the context, it looks OK to me.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello CHEKYTAN,
Neither is correct. In this context, government as a general concept would be singular (Government is...). As far as the rest goes, the first is the correct option. Although the 's form is in some contexts, especially with names, it is actually grammatically illogical and it is not used in a context such as this.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello again CHÉKYTAN,
In this example the context is different. Here, you are presumably talking about a particular government rather than about the concept of government in general. Thus, here we would use 'the;:
The government is...
The rest of the sentence is fine.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Grammarfan07,
Both options are grammatically possible, though I would say the second sentence does not need the word 'and'. Also, the correct adjective here would be 'tropical' rather than 'tropic'.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Phan Hang,
Yes, you can certainly use an apostrophe like that.
Her friends' coats is perfectly fine.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello again re_nez
It's not included in the table on this page because it's something native speakers don't use. To be honest, I don't know exactly why this is, but I expect that it has to do with the way the language evolved over the past 1500 years.
All the best
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Antosole7,
The correct form here is John's.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Andrea Klocová
An adjective goes with a noun or pronoun and a pronoun takes the place of a noun. In the phrases 'your house' and 'their car', 'your' and 'their' go with the nouns 'house' and 'car' and identify them.
'mine' doesn't go with a noun -- instead it takes the place of the idea 'my house'. In the same way, 'ours' doesn't go with a noun and takes the place of the idea 'our car'. Since they take the place of a noun, these are pronouns and so we use the pronoun forms.
Does that make sense?
All the best
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Duale,
Our infomation on this topic is on the page and in the exercises above, but if you have a specific question about one of the examples, for instance, then we'll be happy to try to help.
It can be useful to look at related topics. On the right of the page you'll see links to other pages dealing with possessive forms. Wotking through those will be helpful, I think.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team