French Possessive Adjectives Explained: What They Are and How to Use Them Correctly

01/05/2026 Learning & Grammer created by Sprachcaffe Team

Explanation and use of French Possessive Adjectives | Among the most important and fundamental tools for expressing everyday concepts are possessive adjectives in French.

Without them, we wouldn't be able to formulate simple expressions like "my nose" or "your eyes," and we wouldn't have a way to indicate a subject's possession of an object.

The possessive adjective in French is not a difficult topic, but it is absolutely essential to learn it perfectly to have a solid foundation on which to "build" the subsequent grammar topics.

In this Sprachcaffe article, we'll look at French possessive adjectives, exercises, examples, and translations, so you'll never have any more doubts!

Possessive Adjectives in French: What They Are and When to Use Them

Possessive adjectives in French - called les adjectifs possessifs - are words used to indicate possession of a thing or person, or to make it clear that a thing or person belongs to a subject.

They follow the same rule as articles, since they agree in gender and number with the noun they refer to and are always placed before the noun , never after, as happens in Italian in some cases (especially due to different regional dialects).

Furthermore, remember that the French possessive adjective is never accompanied by the article , unlike in Italian. We would say "il mio amico," specifying that it is that specific friend with the definite article: this doesn't happen in French, and you can tell that "mon amie" is that specific friend from the context in which the sentence is placed and from the other elements that compose it.

Ton amie Marcus est très sympa. = Your friend Marcus is very nice.

In the plural form (we, you, they) there is no difference between masculine and feminine . Here too, therefore, you can only determine whether one or the other case is involved from the context.

In the sentence:

Je n'aime pas ses amis. = I don't like his /her friends.

We still can't figure out whether they are male friends or female friends.

If we add, however, the following sentence:

Ces deux-là, Jean et François, sont vraiment méchants. = Those two over there, Jean and François, are really bad.

so at this point we know they are males.

A very common mistake concerns the third person: many people use it as the subject who owns the thing, but in reality, the third person singular agrees in gender and number with the object referred to by the French possessive adjective. And in the singular, we distinguish between "suo di lui" and "suo di lei." It may seem obvious, but in reality, many French students make this mistake.

Tes lunettes de soleil = Your sunglasses.

Another special case concerns demonstrative adjectives. In Italian, it's not a problem to find possessive and demonstrative adjectives in the same sentence. However, when this happens in French, we have to make a choice: we can't write both the demonstrative and the possessive adjective in French. Most of the time, in these cases, the demonstrative is omitted because the possessive allows the sentence to be more or less preserved.

This friend of yours is nice = Ton amie est sympathique.

These cookies are delicious. Ses cookies sont délicieux.

Possessive Adjectives in French: What Are They?

Table

Now let's look in more detail at the possessive adjectives in French, depending on the personal pronoun.
		singlular	plural
person	male	female	masculine/feminine
je	mon	ma	mes
tu	ton	ta	tes
il/elle/on	son	sa	ses
nous	notre	notre	nos
vous	votre	votre	vos
ils/elles	leur	leur	leurs

This is the regular formula that applies in all circumstances, or almost all.

If a noun begins with a vowel or a silent h , then the masculine singular is used even if it is a feminine singular noun.

T a a mie = Ton amie

This happens because French is a very musical language, connecting sounds together, particularly the final letters of one word and the initial letters of the next. This liaison between an adjective and a noun is impossible if both contain a vowel, and to avoid a vowel clash , it's preferable to use the French masculine possessive adjective.

In some cases, this particular choice can cause some comprehension problems, especially if it's just a matter of listening. "Ton amie" and "ton ami" have the exact same pronunciation , but the former is the feminine form, and the latter is the masculine. While in writing it's easy to tell which is which thanks to the different spellings, in speech you can only figure it out from the context and other elements within the speech.

To clarify the point, however, let's look at some examples of French possessive adjectives applied in context:

J'ai rencontré vos parents hier. = Yesterday I met your parents.
These crêpes are the best. = His crepes are the best.
Leurs chiens s'appellent Dug et Bobby. = Their dogs are called Dug and Bobby.
Maria is sortie sans son sac à main. = Maria went out without her bag.
You have brought your papers. = You have brought your documents.
Il n'y a pas notre voiture, où est-elle? = Our car isn't there, where did it go?
Tes parents et mes grands-parents se connaissent bien. = Your parents and my grandparents know each other well.

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Difference between Possessive Adjectives and Pronouns

There's one more issue regarding possessive adjectives that differentiates them quite a bit from Italian. In fact, we use the same text particle to indicate adjectives and pronouns, that is, the words used to replace nouns. Depending on the word they're attached to, we can determine whether it's an adjective or a pronoun, but graphically they look the same.

In French, however, two different text particles are used for possessive adjectives and pronouns : this could help you distinguish them better and learn to recognize them much more easily.
Furthermore, when we find a possessive pronoun, we distinguish it very clearly from the adjective also because pronouns always come before the verb , with the task of replacing the noun they refer to. The pronoun agrees in gender and number with the noun to which it is attached, even if the latter is implied.

Another substantial difference between possessive pronouns and adjectives in French, then, is that pronouns are always accompanied by the article , while adjectives reject it.

Let's now see, just to understand the differences, what the possessive pronouns are.

This is the singular:

person	masculine singular	feminine singular
je	le mien	la mienne
tu	le tien	la tienne
il / elle / on	le sien	la sienne
nous	le nôtre	la nôtre
vous	le vôtre	la vôtre
ils / elles	le leur	la leur

While this, instead, is the plural:
person	masculine plural	feminine plural
je	les miens	les miennes
tu	les tiens	les tiennes
il / elle / on	les siens	les siennes
nous	les nôtres	les nôtres
vous	les vôtres	les vôtres
ils / elles	les leurs	les leurs

As we can see, even words that seem similar and confusingly similar actually have an important difference: the possessive adjective notre becomes nôtre as possessive, and therefore adds the circumflex accent.

Here are some examples to help you easily distinguish possessive pronouns and adjectives in French:

Your watch is very beautiful. My watch, on the other hand, is old. = Your watch is very beautiful. My watch, on the other hand, is old.
In the first sentence, we have a possessive adjective, votre , which we recognize because it is followed by the noun it refers to and is not preceded by an article. In the sentence that immediately follows, however, we find a possessive pronoun, mien , with its article.

Chacun a ses problèmes, j'ai les miens et vous avez les vôtres = Everyone has their problems, I have mine and you have yours .
Another example of a sentence in which the adjective appears first to accompany the noun, and then the pronouns that refer to that same noun, no longer explicitly stated.

Possessive adjectives in French exercises

At this point, all that's left to do is test your knowledge of French possessive adjectives with skills tests. It's important to test your knowledge only when you feel confident in the theory, otherwise the results won't be what you hoped for. And it's equally important not to peek at the solutions at the bottom, or what's the point?

So here are a couple of exercises to test yourself.

The first exercise is as follows: insert one of the French possessive adjectives provided into the correct sentence, depending on the context and the given translation.

leurs votre ses mon vos tone but notre leur

___ lunettes sont vraiment tendance. = Her glasses are really trendy.
I don't want you ___ proches depuis très longtemps. = I haven't seen your relatives for a very long time.
Quelle est ___ actualité ? = What's new?
____ sacs ont été perdus. = Their luggage was lost.
C'est ___ chat, il s'appelle Félix. = That's their cat, his name is Felix.
___ house is also large as a château. = Our house is as big as a castle.
J'ai pris ___ portable par accident. = I took your cell phone by accident.
You are all ___ ways! = You are my whole life!
___ meilleur ami est parti en vacances. = My best friend went on vacation.

The second exercise involves completing the sentences with the French possessive adjective agreed upon in the correct gender and number:

C'est ___ anniversaire dans quelques jours. = Your birthday is in a few days.
___ children are all at school. = My children went to school.
Jennifer found ___ brushes with teeth. = Jennifer found her toothbrush.
Thomas a perdu ___ clés. = Thomas lost his keys.
Ce n'est pas juste que nous payions pour ____ erreurs. = It's not fair that we pay for their mistakes.
Faire ses devoirs, c'est ___ devoir. = Doing homework is our duty.
C'est ___ chemise préférée. = This is her favorite shirt.
___ amie reste pour le déjeuner. = My friend is staying for lunch.
J'ai vu ___ air méchant! = I saw your bad look!

The third exercise we propose, however, is aimed at testing your ability to correctly apply possessive adjectives and pronouns in French.

Il ya ___ cahiers. C'est le ___ et c'est le ___. = There are our notebooks. That's mine and that's yours.
N'y touchez pas, c'est le ___ . = Don't touch it, it's his.
Combined trains! That's the ___? = How many trains! What is ours?
J'ai vu ___ dessin, mais je préfère le ___. = I saw his drawing, but I prefer yours.
There's a problem. Le ___ et c'est tout. = It's your problem. Yours and that's it.
Ce ne sont pas ___ amis, ce sont les ____. = They are not our friends, they are theirs.
Nous avons joué avec le ___ et ___ jouets. = We played with my and his toys.
We don't want to pay attention to the opinions of others. Seoul is ____ important. = We shouldn't care about the opinion of others. Only ours is important.
C'est ____ village. Le ___ est là-bas. = This is our village. Theirs is over there.

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