21 Possessive adjectives

In Brief:

The use of these adjectives is similar between English and Spanish, with the exception that Spanish has plural forms, but English doesn’t.

Possessive Adjectives

Singular	Plural	In English
mi	mis	my
tu	tus	your (fam.)
su	sus	his
su	sus	her
su	sus	your (formal)
su	sus	its
su	sus	their
nuestro(a)	nuestros(as)	our
vuestro(a)	vuestros(as)	your (fam; Spain)

Possessive adjectives appear immediately before a noun and they agree in number with the noun. If the noun that follows is singular, use the singular form of the possessive adjective. If the noun is plural, then a plural possessive adjective must be used:

Singular and Plural Possessive Adjectives

Singular	In English	Plural	In English
mi libro	my book	mis libros	my books
tu clase	your class	tus clases	your classes
su amigo	her friend	sus amigos	her friends

The “nuestro” and “vuestro” forms will agree with the noun that follows in both number (sg / pl) and gender (m / f). It doesn’t matter who is speaking, or to whom one is speaking; what controls the use of the masculine and feminine forms is whether the noun itself is masculine or feminine:

Nuestro and vuestro agreement

Singular	In English	Plural	In English	Nouns
nuestro libro	our book	nuestros libros	our books	libro = m
nuestra clase	our class	nuestras clases	our classes	clase = f
vuestro libro	your book	vuestros libros	your books	libro = m
vuestra clase	your class	vuestras clases	your classes	clase = f

OJO: “vuestro” (your) and its variances are used in Spain only. In the Spanish of the Americas, “su/sus” (your) is used.

“Su” and “sus” have multiple meanings

Singular	Plural	Possible meanings
su	sus	his
		her
		your (formal)
		its
		their

When the context is clear there generally isn’t any ambiguity. For example, if we have been talking about my friend Lorena’s class schedule and I say “her English class is at nine”, I could simply say “su clase de inglés es a las nueve” and there wouldn’t be any confusion—you would know that “su” refers to Lorena. But without any real context the same phrase “su clase de inglés es a las nueve” could have several meanings: “his-her-your (formal)-their…class”. If you want to avoid possible confusion, use the following structure:

To clarify ambiguity of “su/sus”:

To clarify ambiguity of “su/sus”

article: the	+	noun	+	of	+	pronoun
el, la, los, las	+	X	+	de	+	él, la, Ud., ellos, ellas, Uds.

Clarifying “su/sus” examples

If context is clear:	To avoid any ambiguity:	English meaning is the same for both:
su libro	el libro de ella	her book
sus libros	los libros de ella	her books
su profesor	el profesor de Ud.	your professor
sus profesores	los profesores de Ud.	your professors
su clase	la clase de ellos	their class
sus clases	las clases de ellos	their classes

OJO: In English, we use an apostrophe “s” to show possession (John’s class), but apostrophes do not exist in Spanish. Spanish does the following instead:

Equivalent of ’s

article: the	+	noun	+	of	+	person
la	+	clase	+	de	+	John = John’s class

More examples:

Los estudiantes de la profesora	The professor’s students
Las classes de Susana	Susana’s classes
El libro de mi amigo	My friend’s book

A final note: when talking directly to one person and addressing him or her in the Ud. form, you could use “su/sus” to express “your”. But notice that the same forms in Spanish are used if you want to express “your” and are addressing a group of people. Again, the singular/plural agreement occurs between “su” and the noun that follows it:

“Su” and “sus” meaning “your” examples:

su clase	your class	talking to 1 person- Ud.
sus clases	your classes	talking to 1 person- Ud.
su clase	your class	talking to a group- Uds. (the group has just 1 class)
sus clases	your classes	talking to a group- Uds. (the group has 2 or more)