1. En casa con la familia Gramática 1
Possessive adjectives

2. En casa con la familia Gramática 1
Showing Possession
• In Spanish there are NO apostrophes.
• You cannot say, for example,
Jorge’s dog, (using an apostrophe)

3. En casa con la familia Gramática 1
Showing Posession
• You must say, “The dog of Jorge,”
only in Spanish.
• Like this: El perro de Jorge.

4. En casa con la familia Gramática 1
De + noun
• This concept of showing possession
is using “de + noun.”
For example: Tengo el cuaderno
de Felipe.

5. En casa con la familia Gramática 1
Showing possession w/adjectives…
• We can use adjectives to show possession just as we do
in English.
• Possessive adjectives in English:
– my, your, his, her, our and their.
• In Spanish the possessive adjectives must match the
noun in number & gender.
• Unlike English, Spanish has two forms of possessive
adjectives:
– a short form that is used before nouns
– and a long form that is used after nouns.

6. En casa con la familia Gramática 1
Short Form—before noun
• Possessive adjectives show ownership or relationships
between people.
Owner Owner
yo mi libro nosotros(as) nuestro libro/nuestra casa
mis libros nuestros libros/nuestras casas
tú tu libro
tus libros
usted ustedes
su libro su libro
él ellos
sus libros sus libros
ella ellas

7. En casa con la familia Gramática 1
Gender and number agreement
• While possessive adjectives refer to the owner, their form
agrees in gender and number with the noun that comes
after them.
refers to agrees grammatically
Martín vive con sus abuelos.
Carlos y yo vivimos con nuestra abuela.

8. En casa con la familia Gramática 1
Long Form—after noun
• Possessive adjectives show ownership or relationships
between people.
Owner Owner
yo mío, mía nosotros nuestro, nuestra
míos, mías nuestros, nuestras
tú tuyo, tuya
tuyos, tuyas
usted ustedes
suyo, suya suyo, suya
él ellos
suyos, suyas suyos, suyas
ella ellas

9. En casa con la familia Gramática 1
Long form—ejemplos
• Change to the long form: mío
– Mi blusa suyo
– su vestido mía
– Tus camisas
– Nuestros libros
La blusa mía
El vestido suyo
Las camisas tuyas
Los libros nuestros

10. En casa con la familia Gramática 1
Just a note…
• As you may have noticed, the short form and long forms
of nuestro are identical. They differ only as to whether
they are used before or after the noun.