Language/Swedish/Grammar/How-to-express-ownership

How to express ownership

In this lesson, we'll focus on how to express ownership by using plural forms of possessive pronouns. In two previous lessons, we've already learned how to use the pronouns min / mitt ("my") and din / ditt ("your") when referring to a noun in its indefinite singular form. As you might remember, min ("my") and din ("your") are used when referring to common gender nouns, or en-nouns, as they're sometimes also called. Mitt ("my") and ditt ("your"), on the other hand, are used when instead we're referring to neuter gender nouns, or ett-nouns, as they're also called. Let's look at some examples to refresh our memory about the usage of min / mitt ("my") and din / ditt ("your"). We'll use the common gender noun en bok ("a book") and the neuter gender noun ett pennskrin ("a pencil case").

For example:

1. Min bok. "My book."  
2. Din bok. "Your book."
3. Mitt pennskrin. "My pencil case."
4. Ditt pennskrin. "Your pencil case."

Now it's time to learn how to express ownership of something that isn't in its singular form, but is in its indefinite plural form. There are several examples of how to do this in this lesson's dialogue, and we'll have a look at them here.

For example:

1. Har du tagit dina badkläder? "Have you taken your swimwear?"
2. Har du packat ner dina gummistövlar? "Have you packed your wellies (rain boots)?"
3. Jag har tagit mina badkläder. "I've taken my swimwear."
4. Ja, jag har packat ner mina gummistövlar. "Yes, I've packed my wellies."

As you might have noticed when looking at the sentences above, the pronouns used to express ownership over a noun in its plural form are dina ("yours") and mina ("my") in Swedish. Now we'll learn how to form simple sentences where we use dina ("yours") and mina ("my") to express ownership. We'll do so by using a sentence structure like the following: Det är dina/mina + [noun in its indefinite plural from] ("It's your/my [noun]"). Let's look at some examples where we're referring to the indefinite plural form of the nouns böcker ("books") and pennskrin ("pencil cases").

For example:

1. Det är mina böcker. "They're my books."  
2. Det är dina böcker. "They're your books."
3. Det är mitt pennskrin. "They're my pencil cases."
4. Det är dina pennskrin. "They're your pencil cases."

After mastering this lesson, these related pages might interest you: Future Tense, Learn Swedish Sentense Structure. Subject, Verb and object., 0 to A1 Course & Present Tense.

Other Lessons

• How to Use Have
• Location
• Time References
• Past Tense
• Definite Articles in Swedish
• Conditional Tense
• How to express our feelings
• Future Tense
• Possessive Case in Swedish
• How to Express Feelings of Joy and Anger
• Present Tense
• Past Participle in Swedish
• Sentense Structure
• Imperative Tense