Swedish possessives: min, mitt, mina and the rest
The Swedish possessive pronouns, which ones agree with the noun and which never change, and the two traps around definite forms and adjectives.
Swedish possessives split into two camps. My, your and our behave like adjectives and agree with the noun: min bil, mitt hus, mina barn. His, her and their are frozen and never change: hans bil, hans hus, hans barn. Learn the table, dodge the two traps below, and you're one article away from the famous sin/sitt/sina.
The table
The agreeing ones follow the en/ett/plural pattern you know from adjectives:
The frozen ones, identical whatever the noun: hans (his), hennes (her), hens (their, singular hen), dess (its), deras (their).
Trap one: the noun goes back to its bare form
After a possessive, the noun is indefinite. English speakers rarely get this wrong, but speakers of many other languages do, and it's worth making explicit: min bil, never "min bilen". The possessive replaces the definite ending; the noun comes back naked.
Trap two: adjectives switch to their -a form
Between a possessive and its noun, an adjective always wears -a, the same weak form used after den/det/de:
- min nya bil = my new car (not "min ny bil")
- vårt gamla hus = our old house
- hans lilla katt = his little cat
The cliffhanger
One thing this article deliberately does not cover: how to say "his" or "her" when the owner is the subject of the same sentence. Swedish has a special reflexive possessive for that, sin/sitt/sina, and choosing between it and hans/hennes changes who owns what. It is the most famous fine distinction in Swedish grammar, it decides whether Erik kissed his own wife or someone else's, and it has its own article next.
Hear the possessives
Five sentences across the table.
Swedish
Min syster bor i Norrköping.
Var är dina nycklar?
Vårt hus är gammalt, men vi älskar det.
Hans fru kommer från Chile.
Deras barn spelar fotboll.
English
My sister lives in Norrköping.
Where are your keys?
Our house is old, but we love it.
His wife comes from Chile.
Their children play football.