{"id":229,"date":"2009-06-30T08:58:40","date_gmt":"2009-06-30T12:58:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/?p=229"},"modified":"2018-02-08T10:00:58","modified_gmt":"2018-02-08T10:00:58","slug":"swedish-possessive-pronouns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/swedish-possessive-pronouns\/","title":{"rendered":"Swedish Possessive Pronouns"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I have never suspected that possessive pronouns (<strong>possessiva pronomen<\/strong>) can be the cause of so many emails! In my post about birthdays, I used a couple of possessive pronouns, and seemingly all of you who had my email address got in touch saying something along those lines <em>\u201cYo Anna, if you are going to use some goofy examples, don\u2019t you think it would be a good idea to explain first why sometimes \u2018<strong>din<\/strong>\u2019 is \u2018<strong>ditt<\/strong>\u2019 or \u2018<strong>dina<\/strong>\u2019? Because we are not, like, you know, mind readers and stuff.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Ahhh\u2026 Those Swedish personal pronouns\u2026 They sure are fun! And don\u2019t worry, they are not as complicated as you think. And by the way, I think I did cover them somewhere on this blog last year.<\/p>\n<p>But since your wish is my command, let\u2019s review those bits, because you are right, they are important, and getting them right makes all the difference between sounding like an idiot and speaking like someone who actually cared enough to learn it properly.<\/p>\n<p>In English, it\u2019s straightforward and easy. Whether you are talking about \u201cmy car\u201d or \u201cmy children\u201d \u2013 \u201cmy\u201d stays the same, no matter what.<\/p>\n<p>In Swedish, it\u2019s a bit more involved than that, simply because Swedish nouns are divided into \u201c<strong>en<\/strong>\u201d and \u201c<strong>ett<\/strong>\u201d. And because most possessive pronouns behave just like adjectives, they need to be treated like adjectives. And hence, most of them get the \u201c<strong>t<\/strong>\u201d ending when accompanying \u201c<strong>ett<\/strong>\u201d nouns and \u201c<strong>a<\/strong>\u201d ending for plural nouns.<\/p>\n<p>Take a look:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>min bil<\/strong> \u2013 my car<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>but<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>mitt hus<\/strong> \u2013 my house<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>and<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>mina skor<\/strong> \u2013 my shoes<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Unfortunately, not all possessive pronouns follow this simple pattern. If they did, our lives would be just too easy, right?<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s one example:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>hans katt<\/strong> \u2013 his cat<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>and<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>hans hus<\/strong> \u2013 his house<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>and<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>hans pengar<\/strong> \u2013 his money (money is plural in Swedish)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And unfortunately, this one is not the only one. There\u2019s more of them pesky little buggers who don\u2019t like to conform.<\/p>\n<p>Here is the complete table of possessive pronouns:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>my \u2013 <strong>min \u2013 mitt \u2013 mina<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>your (singular) \u2013 <strong>din \u2013 ditt \u2013dina<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>his \u2013 <strong>hans \u2013 hans \u2013 hans<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>her \u2013 <strong>hennes \u2013 hennes \u2013 hennes<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>its \u2013 <strong>dess \u2013 dess \u2013 dess<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>our \u2013 <strong>v\u00e5r \u2013 v\u00e5rt \u2013 v\u00e5ra<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>your (plural) \u2013 <strong>er \u2013 ert \u2013 era<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>their \u2013 <strong>deras \u2013 deras \u2013 deras<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u201c<strong>Dess<\/strong>\u201d is the possessive pronoun of \u201c<strong>den<\/strong>\u201d and \u201c<strong>det<\/strong>\u201d but it\u2019s not used very much. Normally, the concept of \u201cits\u201d is expressed in some other way, like for example:<br \/>\n<strong>Jag har en katt.<\/strong> \u2013 I have a cat.<br \/>\nBut instead of saying \u201c<strong>Dess p\u00e4ls \u00e4r vit<\/strong>.\u201d \u2013 Its fur (coat) it white.<br \/>\nWe would rather say<br \/>\n<strong>Den har vit p\u00e4ls<\/strong>. \u2013 It has white fur (coat).<\/p>\n<p>There is also a mysterious (at least mysterious to many Swedish learners) pronoun \u201c<strong>sin<\/strong>\u201d but I think we should cover it in its very own special post.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080\">PS. Today is the LAST DAY to enter my <strong>Midsommar<\/strong> Book Contest!!! The deadline is midnight EST (Eastern Standard Time in the US). So don&#8217;t miss out!!! \ud83d\ude42 <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080\">Scroll a few posts back to get the details!<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I have never suspected that possessive pronouns (possessiva pronomen) can be the cause of so many emails! In my post about birthdays, I used a couple of possessive pronouns, and seemingly all of you who had my email address got in touch saying something along those lines \u201cYo Anna, if you are going to use&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"post-item__readmore\"><a class=\"btn btn--md\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/swedish-possessive-pronouns\/\">Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[3172,3175,364864,3349,3353],"class_list":["post-229","post","type-post","status-publish","hentry","category-grammar","tag-en-words","tag-ett-words","tag-grammar","tag-plural","tag-possessive-pronouns"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=229"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7994,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229\/revisions\/7994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}