Possessive pronouns — meiner, deiner, seiner

These are the standalone ones. English has two sets: "my / mine," "your / yours," "his / his." The first goes before a noun (my car); the second stands alone (the car is mine). German does the same split. You already know mein + noun. This lesson is about dropping the noun and letting the possessive stand on its own.

The two families

When the noun disappears, the possessive has to do more work signaling — so it picks up the strong, definite-article-style endings.

The ending table

Same pattern you saw in strong adjective declension. Take the base (mein-, dein-, sein-, etc.) and add the ending.

The neuter form often appears as meins in modern usage (the e is dropped). Both meines and meins are accepted.

In action

wessen? — asking about ownership

To ask "whose?" German uses wessen. Rare in speech but you'll see it in writing and fixed questions.

Common mistakes, named

1. Using the article form when you mean the standalone. Das Auto ist mein. ❌ → Das Auto ist meins. ✓ Standalone → take the strong ending.

2. Forgetting the -er in masculine Nominativ. Wo ist mein? ❌ → Wo ist meiner? ✓

3. Decoupling from the case of the role in the sentence. Ich nehme deins. (Akk neut → deins.) Ich fahre mit deinem. (Dat masc → deinem.)

4. Capitalizing Ihrer as ihrer (or vice versa). Same as the article: capital Ihr = formal you. Lowercase ihr = her/their/you-pl.

Mini check

Where this leads

Another pointing word: dieser, diese, dieses — "this one" vs. "that one."

Next up: Demonstrativpronomen — this and that.

Test yourself