German possessive determiners

Possessive determiners (mein, dein, sein, ihr, unser, euer, Ihr) decline the same way the indefinite article ein does. The declension itself is fairly regular — the real difficulty is picking the right stem for the owner in the first place, and a couple of spots where German sets traps English doesn't have.

Who's who: picking the stem by owner

The stem depends on who owns the thing, not the gender of the noun it's attached to (that's a separate matter — the case ending):

Common mistakes

sein vs ihr. The most common mix-up — English keeps "his" and "her"/"their" clearly distinct, but German's ihr also covers several other meanings, so it's easy to reach for sein when the owner is she or they, and vice versa: Peter sucht seinen Schlüssel. (his key) vs Maria sucht ihren Schlüssel. (her key).

euer → eure. Adding an ending makes euer drop the vowel from its stem: eure Fahrräder, not euere Fahrräder. This only affects euer — the other possessive determiners keep their stem unchanged.

ihr vs Ihr. Formal address always produces capitalized Ihr, even mid-sentence: Haben Sie Ihren Regenschirm dabei? The capital letter is the only thing distinguishing it from "her"/"their" in writing — in speech they're identical, and only the formal Sie nearby signals which one is meant.

Practice

To make sure it sticks, try a few exercises on possessive determiners.

More exercises on this topic, with your progress saved and reminders to review — in the Telegram bot @ImmerWiederholenBot.

See also

• German cases — what each case does and how the article declines.
• Personal and reflexive pronouns — mich/mir, sich, and when you need which.