Possessive Adjectives Tutorial

Tutorial

what's covered

In this lesson, you will learn about the purpose of possessive adjectives in the Spanish language, and how they function grammatically. Specifically, this lesson will cover:

Los Adjetivos Posesivos (Possessive Adjectives)
1. Rules of Agreement
2. Stating Names

1. Los Adjetivos Posesivos (Possessive Adjectives)

Possessive adjectives come before nouns. They let us know who owns the object.

EXAMPLE

"Mi amigo" means "my friend."

1a. Rules of Agreement

Possessive adjectives agree with the objects that they describe, not with the people that own the objects.

EXAMPLE

"Mis amigos" means "my friends."

The word "mis" does not imply that I am more than one person; instead, it states that I have more than one friend.

The possessive adjectives that you will need to know for your profession are gender neutral; you will not change the endings to agree with the gender of the object described. You will only need to add an "s" to describe more than one object.

EXAMPLE

"Su" can mean "his," her," "your," or "their." It changes to "sus" to describe more than one object.

The chart below presents further examples of how the possessive adjective only changes when it becomes plural; it does not change when the gender of the noun changes.

Spanish Adjective and Noun	Number	Gender	English Translation
mi amigo	singular	masculine	my male friend
mi amiga	singular	feminine	my female friend
su amigo	singular	masculine	his/her/your/their male friend
su amiga	singular	feminine	his/her/your/their female friend
mis amigos	plural	masculine	my male friends
mis amigas	plural	feminine	my female friends
sus amigos	plural	masculine	his/her/your/their male friends
sus amigas	plural	feminine	his/her/your/their female friends

1b. Stating Names

If you want to state the name of the person to whom something belongs, you must state possession "the long way around." In English, we use the "'s" as a short-cut. In Spanish, there is no such thing as an "apostrophe-s."

EXAMPLE

To say "Teresa's car," you must say "el carro de Teresa" (the car of Teresa). "Sara's medicine" would be "la medicina de Sara" (the medicine of Sara).

summary

In this lesson, you learned about possessive adjectives in the Spanish language. These adjectives come before nouns and are used to demonstrate possession or ownership. There are special rules of agreement that apply to possessive adjectives: Unlike other adjectives, possessive adjectives are gender neutral and do not change to agree with the gender of the noun they describe. However, they do change according to whether or not the noun is singular or plural.

When stating people's names along with something that belongs to them, you cannot use an apostrophe with an "s" the way you can in English. Instead, you must use the preposition "de" between the object and the name.

¡Buena suerte!

Support

If you are struggling with a concept or terminology in the course, you may contact PharmacySpanishSupport@capella.edu for assistance.

If you are having technical issues, please contact learningcoach@sophia.org.

Source: This content has been adapted from "Pharmacy Spanish" by Stephanie Langston.

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Possessive Adjectives

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1. Los Adjetivos Posesivos (Possessive Adjectives)

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