3.5 Possessive Adjectives
As demonstrated in the previous exercise, in French you can indicate possession by using the preposition de:
Les cousins de Joseph. / Joseph’s cousins.
You can also indicate possession by using a possessive adjective, the equivalent of “my,” “her,” “our,” etc. Possessive adjectives are used before the noun and must agree in gender and number with the noun they modify. Thus, if the noun is feminine, the possessive article must be feminine. For example, the feminine noun famille requires a feminine form.
Ta mère s’appelle Renée. / Your mother is named Renée.
Leurs enfants sont grands. / Their children are big.
| MASCULINE SINGULAR | FEMININE SINGULAR | PLURAL | ENGLISH |
|---|---|---|---|
| mon | ma | mes | my |
| ton | ta | tes | your (familiar) |
| son | sa | ses | his or her or its |
| notre | notre | nos | our |
| votre | votre | vos | your (formal or plural) |
| leur | leur | leurs | their |
Note that the possessive adjective sa has three potential translations in English: his, her, or its. To determine which meaning is intended, you must look at the context.
We use mon, ton and son with feminine singular nouns that begin with a vowel or with an h.
Example: Mon amie. / My (feminine) friend.
Exercise 7: Les Adjectifs Possessifs
Word choice
Exercise 8: Mes choses
Fill in the Blanks
This section includes content derived from Français Interactif, originally released under CC BY 3.0, Liberté, originally released under CC BY-NC-SA, and Tex’s French Grammar, originally released under CC BY 3.0.
