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6. Possessive Adjectives
Possessive Adjectives are used to denote ownership of a noun. For example, my watch, her car, their dog, etc. are adjectives that tell us who owns the noun (the watch, the car, the dog, etc.) The following are the possessive adjectives in Spanish:
| SINGULAR | PLURAL | ENGLISH |
mi |
mis |
my |
tu |
tus |
your (informal) |
su |
sus |
his, her, your (formal), their |
nuestro |
nuestros |
our (for masculine nouns or a mixture of masculine and feminine nouns) |
nuestra |
nuestras |
our (for all feminine nouns) |
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Let’s look at some example sentences using the nouns and adjectives we have learned in the previous lessons:
Mi carro es nuevo – My car is new
Tu gato es lindo – Your cat is cute (informal)
Su maleta es grande – His/her/their/your suitcase is big
Mis carros son nuevos – My cars are new
Tus gatos son lindos – Your cats are cute (informal)
Sus maletas son grandes – His/her/their/your suitcases are big
Note that the possessive adjective becomes singular or plural based on the noun (e.g. ‘Tu gato’, ‘Tus gatos’).
Now you must have noticed that ‘su’ and ‘sus’ can mean different things. How would you know the correct meaning? For example, does ‘su maleta’ mean ‘his suitcase’, ‘her suitcase’, ‘their suitcase’ or ‘your suitcase’? The answer is that you have to take the context into account. It’s similar to when we say “You have a wonderful home” in English. Are you talking to a group of people or one person in particular?
English doesn’t really have a plural form of ‘you’ or ‘your’. We just know based on the context. However, if you want to clarify that you are addressing more than one person you can say ‘you all’ (or “y’all” in some places). There is also a way for you to specify exactly what you mean in Spanish as well: you would use the pronoun (mentioned in the previous lesson).
Let’s look at the example of ‘Su maleta’ – His/her/their/your suitcase. If you want to specify who ‘su’ refers to because it is not obvious, you could do the following:
La maleta de él – His suitcase (lit. ‘The suitcase of him’)
La maleta de ella – Her suitcase (lit. ‘The suitcase of her’)
La maleta de usted – Your suitcase (lit. ‘The suitcase of you’, this form is not commonly used)
Similarly for the plural form, ‘sus maletas’ can be written as:
Las maletas de ellos – Their suitcases (lit. ‘The suitcases of them’ referring to males or a mixture of males and females)
Las maletas de ellas – Their suitcases (lit. ‘The suitcases of them’ referring to all females)
Las maletas de ustedes – Your suitcases (lit. ‘The suitcases of you’ referring to a group of people)
Now let’s look at some examples with complete sentences:
Su carro está sucio
You can be more specific by saying:
El carro de él está sucio – His car is dirty
El carro de ella está sucio – Her car is dirty
El carro de usted está sucio – Your car is dirty (not commonly used)
Let’s try one more:
Su tía es gorda
Or to be more specific:
La tía de él es gorda – His aunt is fat
La tía de ella es gorda – Her aunt is fat
La tía de usted es gorda – Your aunt is fat (not commonly used)
Note: You may be confused to see two different verbs to express ‘to be’:
‘Su carro está sucio’
‘Su tía es gorda’
The short answer is that there are 2 different verbs meaning ‘to be’ in English ‘Ser’ and ‘Estar’. Don’t worry, we devote a whole chapter to this in our verbs section on ‘Ser and Estar’.
Now let’s try an example with the plural form:
Sus perros son pequeños
Or to be more specific:
Los perros de ellos son pequeños – Their dogs are small
Los perros de ellas son pequeños – Their (all females) dogs are small
Los perros de ustedes son pequeños – Your (plural) dogs are small
Now let’s talk about how to say ‘ours’. This one is a little different from the others in that it agrees not only with the number of the noun but also with the gender. Let’s look at some examples:
Nuestro hermano es alto – Our brother is tall
Nuestros hermanos son altos – Our brothers are tall
Nuestra casa es hermosa – Our house is beautiful
Nuestras casas son hermosas – Our houses are beautiful
There is also one more form (vuestro) that means ‘your’ when referring to a group of people you are familiar with. So you would address them informally.
| SINGULAR | PLURAL | ENGLISH |
vuestro/vuestra |
vuestros/vuestras |
your (plural informal) |
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However, the form is not used in spoken Spanish anymore, except in Spain. ‘Sus’ or ‘de ustedes’ is used instead (examples above). Since our website focuses mainly on Latin American Spanish, we will not go into more details about this one.