I understood its logic but I am keeping getting wrong here and there 😊
Everything takes time.
I believed I understood how it works 100%, but unexpected mistakes and correcting without knowing made me very confused. Just another ordinary day studying French, I figured out the major hole in my understanding of French possessive adjective. Now, I am confident to share here with you. On y va!
Just a heads up, I'm not a professional teacher, but rather another learner. The information I share might not be entirely accurate.
1. How we are introduced to French possessive pronouns
When we first learn French possessive adjective, we come across tables like this:
And as complicated as it looks due to the gender and the count of each noun, but the explanation of this concept says very simple:
“They agree with the noun they refer to”
I thought it was simple, and I got them right most of the time. But I still I could not figure out why I get these wrong sometimes?
2. What?!
Usually in the table these pronouns are introduced with English translations, for example:
Mon, ma, mes = my
Ton, ta, tes = your
…
leur, leur, leurs = their
Most of the time the main exercises we encounter for this grammar point is how we use each adjective according to each noun (according to each gender and count). Of course, this is important, however, whilst I was reviewing using “leur” and “leurs” I revealed that there was another thing that we also need to be aware of.
Before I get into this, remind yourself this again:
“They agree with the noun they refer to”
And another thing:
They are not in fact 100% the same as English possessive adjectives, “my”, “your”, … “their”
What am I talking about? Did I get your attention?
3. Understanding the difference between how English and French possessive pronouns fundamentally works.
For native English speakers and who learnt English first and then French after (like me) can fall into this trap.
We know that the meaning of each French possessive adjectives from the table: ‘my’, ‘your’, …, ‘their’. However, in fact, for those who are confused, we added one more thing for our convenience unconsiously:
We might have thought that French possessive adjectives are also used the same as English possessive adjectives. In fact, French possessive adjective explanations mentions that their meaning is the same.
What do I mean by that? Here is the grand reveal:
In French, unlike in English, the gender of the owner isn’t referred to when using possessive adjectives. Instead, the possessive adjective corresponds to the gender of the noun it’s describing. - Babble
4. Examples for you 🎁 : ‘leur’ & ‘leurs’
Now, I guess you are curious why this is a big deal. I will give you one example:
French: Ils sont en vacances avec leurs enfants.
English: They are on vacation with their children.
Now, here is my understanding, hope it helps 💗:
If we bring the explanation of the difference between English possessive adjectives and French adjectives here it is:
In English, the gender of the owner is referred to when using possessive adjectives, and
in French, the possessive adjective corresponds to the gender of the noun it’s describing.
In this example sentence,
« Ils sont en vacances avec leurs enfants»: ‘leurs’ the adjective is chosen of the noun - ‘enfants' whilst « They are on vacation with their children »: the adjective ‘their’ refers the owner.
When I interpreted « Ils sont en vacances avec leurs enfants» myself, I translated that ‘leurs’ as the parents not enfants. I was not entirely correct. Who else, understood ‘leurs’ as the parents?
I will give you more sentences to help you understand fully :
« Ils sont en vacances avec leur enfant » : For example, imagine a family with one child. The corresponding English sentence will be like this : « They were on holiday with their child ». Hmm, so in English ‘their’ is the parents, and they are plural, and the answer is ‘leurs’!!!
In fact, in French, do you remember that the adj only describes the noun?
So what is the noun the adjective is referring to? : enfant
‘enfant’ does not have an ‘s’ so it is : singular
meanwhile it is ‘their’ child tho.. : among the whole mon, ton, son, … leur, leur is correct!
« Il est en vacances avec leurs enfants » : Here will be one male went for a holiday with ‘his’ children. Again, if I used the adjective the owner(his), then I would have probably written « Il est en vacancies avec leur enfants » because it is translated in English as « He is on vacation with his children ». Funny right?
Also, can you understand why it is ‘leurs enfants’?
Plus, can you spot the blind spot that it is ‘leur enfants’ but translated ‘his children’? Is leur = his? Wasn’t it leur = their? haha
« Il est en vacances avec leur enfant » : If you understood #1 and #2, this is way easier for you, and try to translate not as in English, but understand as French !
It seems confusing however if we think that French possessive adjective describes the noun then it becomes very simple(#1-a,b), whilst it is not exactly ‘only’ considering the noun(#1-c). If you are confused have another read of #1 - a,b,c.
More examples for you and me!
To summarise, I want to say that English and French possessive pronouns are not entirely identical.
Again, English possessive adjective involves the owner, and French possessive adjective considers the noun that it describes. Here are some exercises for you :
Quel est le numéro de téléphone de «____» parents? : What is your parents' phone number? (tes)
Quelle est la couleur de «____» maison? : What is the color of their house? (leur)
Can you distinguish each meaning of these four sentences? (focus on both the usage of ‘possessive adjectives’ and ‘être’ verb)
Le fils de ma tante est à l’université
Les fils de ma tante sont à l’université
Le fils de mes tantes est à l’université
Les fils de mes tantes sont à l’université
Did I confuse you more? or less? 🙈
Sometimes getting grammar explanations makes things even more complicated which is why I choose to ignore it. Then i run in to situations where I don't know how to form simple sentences. 😅