Unit 3: Articles, Simple Past
2. Ein- Words (including Possessive Pronouns)
These are the words similar to the indefinite article in the way they take or do not take endings. They are:
| mein | my |
| dein | your (singular and familiar) |
| sein | his / its |
| ihr | her / its / their |
| unser | our |
| euer | your (plural and familiar) |
| Ihr | your (formal) |
| kein | not a, no, not any |
Using mein as our example ein-word our chart looks as follows (compare with the indefinite article chart in Unit 2):
| Masculine | Feminine | Neuter | Plural | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nominative | mein | meine | mein | meine |
| Accusative | meinen | meine | mein | meine |
| Dative | meinem | meiner | meinem | meinen ) |
| Genitive | meines |
meiner | meines |
meiner |
Points to remember:
- Ein– words with no endings are always either nominative singular or accusative singular.
- The ending –em on both ein– words and der– words is unique to dative singular.
- The ending –es with the noun adding an –s or –es is unique to genitive singular.
-
When euer has an ending, the stem changes to eur-. Examples:
Euer Kind bekommt gute Noten.
Your child gets good grades.Eure Freunde kommen bald.
Your friends are coming soon. - Because German nouns are gendered, pronouns referring to them are also gendered. Review Unit 1, section 4, Note #2)” and keep in mind that sein/ihr references might best be translated as “its.”
Take the memorization advice from Unit 2 and expand your memorization task to include possessive pronouns. You should be noticing that the possessive pronouns, too, fit the general German spelling patterns for gender, case, and number distinctions.
