Possessive Adjectives: Plural Possessions

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Adjectifs possessifs pour possessions plurielles

When dealing with plural possessions, there’s only one French possessive adjective for each grammatical person:

my		mes
your (tu form)		tes
his, her, its		ses
our		nos
your (vous form)		vos
their		leurs

Par exemple…

Où sont mes frères ?		Where are my brothers?
Nous écoutons tes chansons.		We’re listening to your songs.
Il a perdu ses clés.		He lost his keys.
Ce sont nos livres.		These are our books.
Je vois vos voitures.		I see your cars.
Il veut leurs idées.		He wants their ideas.

The tricky part

You have to be careful when deciding whether a plural owner’s possession is singular or plural.

For example, my husband and I live in the same house. Though there are two of us, we have one house that we share, so we say notre maison. Likewise, since we share a car, we say notre voiture.

Nous avons acheté notre maison en 2015.		We bought our (shared) house in 2015.
David et Anna, votre voiture elle belle !		David and Anna, your car is beautiful!

There are two types of scenarios in which the possession is considered plural:

1. We each have our own house and our own car (we’re divorced).
2. Collectively, we have multiple houses and multiple cars (we’re rich).

Nous avons vendu nos maisons en 2017.		We sold our houses in 2017.
Où sont vos voitures ?		Where are your cars?

 The really tricky part

With the third person plural, using the plural adjective automatically means that each person has more than one of the item.

Ils aiment bien leurs profs.		They really like their teachers. (they have several)
Elles ont fait leurs lits.		They made their beds. (they each have two)

When the item is not shared, it’s more idiomatic to use the singular possessive, even though this is ambiguous.

Ils aiment bien leur prof.		They really like their teacher. (they share a teacher)   or They really like their teachers. (they have different teachers)
Elles ont fait leur lit.		They made their bed. (the two girls share a bed)   or They made their beds. (each girl made her own bed)

More French possessive adjectives

• Introduction
• Singular possessors  |  Plural possessors
• Singular possessions  |  Plural possessions

 Possessive Adjective Quizzes

• L’anniversaire de Thomas
• Dans les vestiaires
• Ma (belle) famille
• Où sont mes chaussures ?

Quizzes on possessive adjectives vs possessive pronouns

• Les enfants au resto
• Nos voisins et nous

Note: You must be logged into your Progress with Lawless French account to take these tests. If you don’t have one, sign up – it’s free!

 Related lessons

• Introduction to nouns and gender
• Introduction to adjectives
• Tes vs vos
• More French possession
• PwLF super list of possession lessons
   

 En español

• Adjetivos posesivos
   

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