{"id":1384,"date":"2016-04-25T11:40:10","date_gmt":"2016-04-25T11:40:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/?p=1384"},"modified":"2016-04-25T11:40:10","modified_gmt":"2016-04-25T11:40:10","slug":"your-danish-possessives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/2016\/04\/25\/your-danish-possessives\/","title":{"rendered":"Your Danish Possessives"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"vores\"<\/a>You\u2019ll probably not find this in your grammar book, but the most important thing to ask yourself when you want to use a possessive pronoun (\u201dmy\u201d, \u201dher\u201d\u2026) in Danish is this: Does it end in an <\/span><\/span><\/span>-s<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span>? If yes, you\u2019re lucky: <\/span><\/span><\/span>hans, hendes, vores, jeres, deres<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span> NEVER change:<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Hans cykel, hendes bil, vores hus, jeres garage, deres b\u00f8rn \u2013 Cyklen er hans, bilen er hendes, huset er vores, garagen er jeres, b\u00f8rnene er deres<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span> (His bike, her car, our house, your garage, their children \u2013 The bike is his, the car is hers, the house is ours, the garage is yours, the children are theirs).<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Min<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span> (mine) and <\/span><\/span><\/span>din <\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span>(yours), however, are just as wishy-washy as your typical adjective. Let\u2019s repeat:<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022 <\/span>-t<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span> is a neuter ending<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022 <\/span>-e<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span> is a plural ending<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

So, you say:<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Har du set min paraply\/mit rejsekort\/mine briller? <\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span>(Have you seen my umbrella\/my travel card\/my glasses?)<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Nej, jeg har ikke set din paraply\/dit rejsekort\/dine briller\u2026<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Stop, wait, it can\u2019t be this easy!<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Okay, it\u2019s true, there IS the small word <\/span><\/span><\/span>sin <\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span>[seen]\u2026 It does not exist in English, but can be translated as \u201dhis (own)\u201d or \u201dher (own)\u201d. It\u2019s inflected just like \u201dmine\u201d: <\/span><\/span><\/span>sin, sit, sine.<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span> I\u2019d better demonstrate:<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Hun drak sin latte. <\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span>(She drank her [own] latte.)<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Han tog sin hat og gik. <\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span>(He took his [own] hat and left.)<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

In both those phrases, <\/span><\/span><\/span>sin<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span> refers back to the person drinking or taking. Not a big deal, maybe, but if you go ahead like you would in English, the meaning actually changes:<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Hun drak hendes latte. <\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span>(She drank her [someone else\u2019s] latte.)<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Han tog hans hat og gik. <\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span>(He took his [someone else\u2019s] hat and left.)<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Got it? \ud83d\ude42 If in doubt, you can always replace pronouns with names: <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Anna Larsen snakker med Anna Larsens veninde > Hun snakker med sin veninde<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span> (She\u2019s talking with her friend).<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Anna Larsen snakker med Helle Jensens veninde > Hun snakker med hendes veninde<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

If you feel like a total mess now, don\u2019t worry: Danes are having a lot of <\/span><\/span><\/span>sin<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span> trouble themselves! In fact, in dialects such as the traditional \u00c5rhus dialect, <\/span><\/span><\/span>sin<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span> isn\u2019t really used\u2026 Just pretend you\u2019re a dialect speaker and do your best to follow the conversation! \ud83d\ude42<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

You\u2019ll probably not find this in your grammar book, but the most important thing to ask yourself when you want to use a possessive pronoun (\u201dmy\u201d, \u201dher\u201d\u2026) in Danish is this: Does it end in an -s? If yes, you\u2019re lucky: hans, hendes, vores, jeres, deres NEVER change: Hans cykel, hendes bil, vores hus, jeres…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":76,"featured_media":1385,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[10178,3351,3359,238421,3403],"class_list":["post-1384","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-grammar","tag-dialects","tag-possessive","tag-pronoun","tag-reflexive-pronoun","tag-sin"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/76"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1384"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1384\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1386,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1384\/revisions\/1386"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}