Lesson 21. Possessive Pronouns in Russian

Before today we have only discussed one group of pronouns in Russian – personal pronouns. We went pretty basic. Now it is time to go a little deeper and to cover possessive pronouns. In Russian possessive pronouns correspond to each of the personal pronouns (see the table below.)

Interrogative Possessive Pronoun “Чей” (“Whose?”)

The interrogative pronoun “Чей” must agree in gender, number and case with the noun it is used with. And you thought it will all be easy, didn’t you?

So, here is another pattern that you need to memorize.

So, where English has only one form/word in Russian there is more than a dozen.

The Possessive Pronouns ‘мой‘, ‘твой‘, ‘наш‘, ‘ваш‘

These pronouns also have to agree in gender, number and case with the nouns they are used with. Let’s see the pattern.

Note: In the declension of all possessive pronouns that change for agreement, when the noun modified is singular masculine inanimate, the accusative case is identical to the nominative; when the noun modified is singular masculine animate, the accusative case is identical to the genitive.

The rule “inanimate accusative = nominative / animate accusative = genitive“, which affects only masculine nouns and their modifiers in the singular, applies to all three genders in the plural.

The Possessive Pronouns ‘его‘, ‘её‘, ‘их‘

Unlike the above mentioned pronouns the third-person possessive pronouns ‘его‘ (his), ‘её‘( her/hers), ‘их‘ (their/theirs) are invariable, which means that they do not change according to the gender, number, or case of the noun they are used with.

Examples:

Вот его брат и его сестра. (Nominative) Here is his brother and his sister.

Я знаю его брата и его сестру. (Accusative) I know his brother and his sister.

Вот её мама и её папа. (Nominative) Here are her mom and her dad.

Мы уже видели её маму и её папу. (Accusative) We already saw her mom and her dad.

Их дом рядом с нашим. (Nominative) Their house is next to ours.

Мы часто бываем в их доме. (Prepositional) We often visit in their house.

Exercizes

Use the interrogative possessive pronoun “Чей” to form questions as shown in the example:

Noun: Стол

Question: Чей это стол?

• дом
• сестра
• ребёнок
• пальто
• брат

Answer the questions you created referring to different personal pronouns.

Answer the questions as shown in the example.

Чей это брат? – Это …………….. (он) сестра. – Это его брат.

1. Чья это собака? – Это ………………… (я) собака.
2. Чей это стол? – Это ……………… (мы) стол.
3. Чьи это книги? – Это ……………….. (она) книги.
4. Чьё это пальто? Это ………………… (я) пальто.
5. Чья это чашка? Это …………………. (он) чашка.

Answers to the exercises can be found in the comments section.