Italian possessive adjectives and pronouns

In Italian possessive adjectives and pronouns have the same form.

However they are used differently.

Indeed, while possessive adjectives are used with the nouns they refer to, possessive pronouns replace nouns.

Examples:

La tua macchina è bella

Your car is beautiful

La tua macchina è più bella della mia

Your car is more beautiful than mine

As you can see from the examples above, the Italian possessive adjective tua is placed before the noun it refers to, macchina, while the Italian possessive pronoun mia replaces the noun macchina.

Possessive Adjectives

Possessive adjectives are generally preceded by a definite article, and they always agree in genre and number with the noun they refer to.

Subject	Masculine singular	Masculine plural	Feminine singular	Feminine plural
Io	mio	miei	mia	mie
Tu	tuo	tuoi	tua	tue
Lui/Lei	suo	suoi	sua	sue
Noi	nostro	nostri	nostra	nostre
Voi	vostro	vostri	vostra	vostre
Loro	loro	loro	loro	loro

Some examples:

La loro casa sta andando a fuoco

Their house is burning

I nostri vicini stanno facendo una festa

Our neighbours are having a party

Le sue scarpe costano 1500 €

Her/his shoes cost 1500 €

La mia macchina è rossa

My car is red

Il vostro amico sembra piuttosto arrabbiato

Your friend looks rather angry

Le loro figlie vanno a scuola insieme

Their daughters are classmates

I tuoi gatti hanno fame

Your cats are angry

Italian possessive adjectives are not preceded by an article when:

•    they go before singular names expressing relationships – i.e. padre, madre, figlio, figlia, marito, moglie, sorella, fratello, zio, zia, cognato, cognata etc, except figliolo, figliola, babbo – without any other adjective between them.

Examples:

Mia sorella ha 50 anni

My sister is 50 years old

BUT

Le mie sorelle sono gemelle

My sisters are twins

La mia figliola è un avvocato

My daughter is a lawyer

They are already preceded by a preposition: i.e. Quello è il cappotto di mia madre (That is my mother’s coat).

However, just remember thay loro always requires an article – il loro padre, i loro zii, etc;

Position

Possessive adjectives generally precede the nouns they refer to – example 1.

However, they can also follow them if the speaker wants to express some emphasis – example 2.

     
1-   Questo è il mio libro di matematica

This is my math book

2-   Questo libro di matematica è mio

This math book is mine

Possessive Pronouns

As previously said, Italian possessive pronouns have the same form as Italian possessive adjectives – see table above.

Possessive pronouns are always preceded by an article or a preposition.

Examples:

•    Questi sono i tuoi regali, e quelli i suoi

These are your gifts and those are his/hers

•    Abbiamo già perlato del tuo matrimonio. Adesso parliamo del mio!

We have already talked about your wedding. Now let’s talk about mine!

I hope to have helped you to learn Italian possessive adjectives and pronouns. If you have any question, feel free to post it below.

If you need to master or revise basic Italian grammar, have a look at my book Sos Italian grammar A1-A2.