Ownership and Possessives in French

There are several ways to talk about possessives in French, just as there are in English. We’ll discuss all the most common forms, vocabulary, and parts of speech for ownership in this lesson. Fortunately, most parts of speech for possession directly match English grammar, with the exception of needing to remember the gender of nouns and pronouns.

Adjective Possessives in French

Adjectives of possession are the short words that translate to “my”, “your”, “his”, etc.

In English, these words are:

	Singular owner	Plural owner
1st person	my	our
2nd person	your	your
3rd person	his/her/its	their

Understanding Adjective-Noun Agreement in French

This concept of possessive adjectives is very similar in French, with the caveat that you’ll need to pay attention to the gender and number of the noun the possessive adjective is referring to. This is an important concept to master for two reasons:

1. First, the adjective needs to “agree” with the noun.
2. Second, you’ll need to remember that the gender and number of the adjective chosen tells you nothing about the speaker‘s gender or number. For example, saying something is “his” or “hers” depends on the gender of the noun, not the gender of the owner.

Finally, these adjectives go directly before the noun (unlike with most other French adjectives, but like French articles).

Possessive Adjectives in French

Within each block of the table below you’ll see three words. In order, these are the masculine version, the feminine version, and the plural version (which is gender neutral, so there is no feminine plural version like there are with other French pronouns).

You should also notice that feminine singular and masculine singular forms are identical on the plural owner side.

	Singular owner	Plural owner
1st person	mon, ma, mes	notre, notre, nos
2nd person	ton, ta, tes	votre, votre, vos
3rd person	son, sa, ses	leur, leur, leurs

Here’s an example that illustrates the difference between English and French versions of possession.

English: “Here is his [because the owner is male] daughter.”

French: Voici sa [because la fille is feminine] fille.

You can see how you lose the information about whether the owner is male or female when you translate the sentence into French, so you must rely on context to tell.

Pronoun Possessives in French

Possessive pronouns replace a [possessive adjective] + [noun] phrase.

In English, the possessive pronouns are:

	Singular owner	Plural owner
1st person	mine	ours
2nd person	yours	yours
3rd person	his/hers/its	theirs

Possessive Pronouns in French

French possessive pronouns have four forms: masculine singular, feminine singular, masculine plural, and feminine plural (see more on subject pronouns here).

Note a few things on the table below:

1. All French possessive pronouns begin with a definite article (le, la, or les)
2. Only the singular owner side has different versions of the masculine plural and feminine plural forms.
3. The plural owner side words looks a lot like the plural side of the possessive adjectives chart earlier in this lesson.
4. The plural owner side also only has one singular form and one plural form.

	Singular owner	Plural owner
1st person	le mien, la mienne, les miens, les miennes	le notre, la notre, les notres, les notres
2nd person	le tien, la tienne, les tiens, les tiennes	le votre, la votre, les votres, les votres
3rd person	le sien, la sienne, les siens, les siennes	le leur, la leur, les leurs, les leurs

For example:

Apportez le manteau de Julie (“Carry Julie’s coat”) → Apportez le sien. (“Carry hers.”)

Trouvez votre stylo. (“Find your pen”) → Trouvez les votres. (“Find yours.”)

Preposition Possessives in French

A final possessive structure in French involves using prepositions, which link two nouns together to state both the owner and owned item.

There are two ways to indicate ownership with prepositions in French.

1) Preposition Possessives using de

The preposition de in French is used to describe a specific something belonging to a specific someone (meaning that you’re talking about nouns and not pronouns).

To construct this sentence, the thing that is owned goes first, followed by de, followed by the person or object the thing belongs to. In other words:

[owned item] + de + [owner of the item]

This structure is the reverse order that things are normally said in English (with the “‘s”), and literally means “the [object] of [the person or other object]”. That phrase might feel awkward to say in English but is still grammatically accurate. For example:

“The bird’s beak” → “The beak of the bird” → Le bec de l’oiseau

“Marie’s friend” → “The friend of Marie” → L’ami de Marie

Also, just as in other sentences in French, de + le will combine to form du in possessive sentences as well. For example:

“The swimmer’s swimsuit” → “The swimsuit of the swimmer” → Le maillot de bains du nageur

2) Preposition Possessives using à

Finally, using à in relation to ownership is generally used to make clarifying or emphatic statements about who in particular owns something.

It is used with either 1) a stressed pronoun (moi, toi, lui, lui, elle, nous, vous, eux, and elles) or 2) a specific object or person. 

With à ownership, a better English translation than saying something is “yours” is saying it “belongs to” you, which puts greater emphasis on the ownership and implies that another entity does not own the item. For example:

“This t-shirt belongs to me.” → Ce t-shirt est à moi.

“The cell phone belongs to them.” → Le portable est à eux.

“The ring belongs to Frodo.” → La bague est à Frodo.

Next Steps

Hopefully you’re confident now in talking about ownership in French! Next, you might want to make sure you’ve mastered French pronouns, as they play an important role in most ways to discuss possession. While we’re on the topic of pronouns, you might also want to learn how to use the y/en pronouns.