3.3: Ein- words (including possessive pronouns)
- Page ID
- 79358
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These are the words similar to the indefinite article in the way they take or do not take endings. They are:
| mein | my |
| dien | your (singular and familiar) |
| sein | his / its |
| ihr | her / its / their |
| unser | our |
| euer | your (plural and familiar) |
| Ihr | your (informal) |
| kein | not a, no, not any |
Using mein as our example ein-word our chart looks as follows (compare with the indifinite article in Unit 2):
| MASCULINE | FEMININE | NEUTER | PLURAL | |
| NOMINATIVE | mein | meine | mein | meine |
| ACCUSATIVE | meinen | meine | mein | meine |
| DATIVE | meinem | meiner | meinem | meinen (Noun + n) |
| GENITIVE | meines (Noun + s/es) |
meiner | meines (Noun + s/es) |
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 5, note "b)" 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.