Level: beginner
| Subject | Object | Possessive adjective | Possessive pronoun |
|---|---|---|---|
| I | me | my | mine |
| you | you | your | yours |
| he | him | his | his |
| she | her | her | hers |
| it | it | its | - |
| we | us | our | ours |
| they | them | their | theirs |
| Be careful! |
|---|
|
Possessive pronouns do not have an apostrophe:
|
We can use a possessive pronoun instead of a full noun phrase to avoid repeating words:
Is that John's car?
No, it's mine. (NOT No, it's [my car].)Whose coat is this?
Is it yours? (NOT Is it [your coat]?)Her coat is grey.
Mine is brown. (NOT[My coat]is brown.)
- Possessives: pronouns 1
Level: intermediate
We can use possessive pronouns and nouns after of. We can say:
Susan is one of my friends. > Susan is a friend of mine.
(NOT Susan is a friendof me.)I am one of Susan's friends. > I am a friend of Susan's.
(NOT I am a friendof Susan.)
- Possessives: pronouns 2
Comments
Hello .... I have a problem to understand how and when to use possesive nouns and adjectives.....for example... Your house is big but mine/my is small??? Their car is expensive but ours/our is cheap??
Hello Andrea, you could say: " Your house is bigger than mine."
Is this car cheaper than ours?
Hello Andrea Klocová
An adjective goes with a noun or pronoun and a pronoun takes the place of a noun. In the phrases 'your house' and 'their car', 'your' and 'their' go with the nouns 'house' and 'car' and identify them.
'mine' doesn't go with a noun -- instead it takes the place of the idea 'my house'. In the same way, 'ours' doesn't go with a noun and takes the place of the idea 'our car'. Since they take the place of a noun, these are pronouns and so we use the pronoun forms.
Does that make sense?
All the best
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Plz I want more advice about, possive pronoun .like how to use in this
Hello Duale,
Our infomation on this topic is on the page and in the exercises above, but if you have a specific question about one of the examples, for instance, then we'll be happy to try to help.
It can be useful to look at related topics. On the right of the page you'll see links to other pages dealing with possessive forms. Wotking through those will be helpful, I think.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi Dear Teachers,
are "individually" and " one by one" the same when a teacher wants to ask the students to do a task without help?
Best regards
Hello Mohsen.k77,
There is a difference between individually and one by one.
When you do something individually, you do it by yourself rather than working in a group.
When people do something one by one, each person waits until the previous person has finished before they start. You could imagine the students standing in a line, waiting for their turn.
One by one can also refer to a set of tasks. For example, if students have a reading text and several tasks to do with it, a teacher might instruct them to do the tasks one by one, which means doing them in sequence. In other words, the studetnts should not start the second task until they have finished the first, and not start the third until they have finished the second.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
I want to ask if using possessive pronoun with noun after of can sentences like this? For example : (How do you know Karolina? Are you a "classmates" of hers?)
It is correct or need to be singular form for classmate?
Possessive pronouns substitute previously mentioned nouns (Karolina in your example) to avoid needless repetition.
Correct syntax to use:
'Are you (both) classmates?' (pl.) - you and Karolina
'Are you her classmate?' (sing.) - possessive adjective + noun
'Are you a classmate of hers?' - prossessive pronoun
Hello Backlight
The plural form is not correct here because you've used the indefinite article 'a', which is only used with singular nouns. But in general the 'of hers' form can be used with both singular and plural nouns. For example, if you were speaking to several people, you could say 'Are you classmates of hers?' to them and that would be correct.
All the best
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
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