A1 Lesson 12 — Possessive Pronouns: mein, dein, sein

POSSESSIVE PRONOUNS

My, Your, His: Saying What's Yours in German

mein, dein, sein — and how they still follow the der/die/das pattern.

Why this matters: "My apartment," "your visa appointment," "his Anmeldung" — possessive pronouns come up constantly in real expat life. The good news: they work exactly like ein from Lesson 9. Once you know the ein-pattern, you already know how possessives behave.

The Possessive Pronoun Stems

Each person has their own stem. Add the same endings you learned for ein to match the noun's gender and case.

Person	Stem	Meaning
ich	mein-	my
du	dein-	your
er/es	sein-	his / its
sie (she)	ihr-	her
wir	unser-	our
ihr (you all)	euer-	your (plural)
sie/Sie	ihr- / Ihr-	their / your (formal)

Adding the Endings (Nominative)

The stem stays the same; only the ending changes to match the noun — exactly like ein/eine/ein.

Gender	Ending	Example
Masculine	— (none)	Mein Bruder wohnt in Berlin. (My brother lives in Berlin.)
Feminine	-e	Meine Schwester arbeitet hier. (My sister works here.)
Neuter	— (none)	Mein Auto ist alt. (My car is old.)
Plural	-e	Meine Eltern leben in Spanien. (My parents live in Spain.)

🇩🇪 Quick tip: "Sein" means both "his" and "its" — use it for anything referring back to a masculine or neuter noun. "Ihr" (lowercase) means "her" or "their," while "Ihr" (capitalized) is the formal "your." Context and capitalization do the work here.

🗣️ Real Talk: You'll use "mein" and "dein" constantly in daily expat life — filling out forms (meine Adresse, mein Reisepass), talking about your apartment (meine Wohnung), or introducing your family. Drill these two first; the rest follow the same logic.

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